"Using the NCBI Pathogen Detection Portal to Aid in Surveillance of Enteric Pathogens” – The New York Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence (NY CoE) hosted a webinar, "Using the NCBI Pathogen Detection Portal to Aid in Surveillance of Enteric Pathogens," on October 23, 2018. The presentation was delivered by Samantha Wirth, M.S., from the NYSDOH Wadsworth Center Bacteriology Laboratory. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Pathogen Detection uses WGS data to identify related sequences (clusters) among clinical and environmental isolates. Use of the browser assists public health epidemiologists and environmental health scientists to uncover potential food contamination sources and effectively investigate foodborne disease outbreaks. The recorded webinar can be accessed here.
FDA Grand Rounds: GenomeTrakr: How a Large Network of Sequencing Laboratories is Advancing Food Safety and Public - Foodborne disease outbreaks are responsible for about 48 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths every year in the U.S., according to CDC data. As the world becomes even more interconnected, FDA has recognized the urgency of creating new approaches and better tools to detect food contamination and stop outbreaks in their tracks. The FDA-established GenomeTrakr is an innovative response to this global public health challenge that uses a cutting-edge technology called Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS). This presentation will discuss the example of the 2015 Virginia sprout outbreak, where Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) provided the lead.