Food Safety Symposium Promotes International Dialogue
Chris Brunner, April 27, 2015
Symposium participants from UC Davis and NAU – Back row: Xunde Li, Rob Atwill, Juhne Liu, Kang Tu, Lark, Coffey, Bennie Osburn, David Goldenberg, Jessica Cadriel, John Angelos, Huaijun Zhou. Front row: Pramod Pandey, Michael Mienaltowski, Fei Lu, Xiaojing Yang, Xin Rui, Xiaomei Bie Heather Johnson
A One Health Food Safety Symposium held on the UC Davis campus, April 14-16, brought faculty together from Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU) and the University of California at Davis. The symposium sponsored by NAU and the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security combined faculty experts from the two universities to discuss different aspects of food safety as well as opportunities for research and graduate educational exchanges between NAU and UC Davis.
The 3-day symposium included breakout sessions which provided NAU and UC Davis faculty participants the opportunity to identify areas of common interest in One Health for food safety. WIFSS’s team members, Rob Atwill, Xunde Li, Bennie Osburn, John Angelos, Heather Johnson, David Goldenberg and Jessica Cadriel, facilitated the dialogue during breakout sessions, lending direction to the energetic exchanges between faculty from the two universities.
Michael Lairmore, Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine, Rob Atwill, Director of WIFSS, and Kang Tu, Associate Dean of the College of Food Science and Technology at NAU, provided opening remarks and welcomed symposium participants. Lectures covered a diverse range of topics including animal welfare, milk products that are important for addressing gastrointestinal diseases, salmonella diagnostics and contamination in food products, the role of water in foodborne diseases, and molecular diagnostics of viruses.
NAU faculty visited the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System to gain an understanding of diagnostics for surveillance of livestock and foodborne illnesses. The visit to the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science facilities provided the opportunity to see the Food Science and Technology laboratories and to discuss graduate programs. NAU faculty also learned about teaching and research activities taking place at the UC Davis Meat Lab.
UC Davis faculty and staff providing lectures and tours included Elizabeth Mitcham, Daniela Barile, Brenda McCowan, Carolyn Stull, Lark Coffey, Michael Mienaltowski, Huaijun Zhou, Rob Atwill, Xunde Li, Richard Breitmeyer, Bob Poppenga, Beate Crossley, Glenn Young, and Caleb Sehnert.
Visiting faculty from NAU included Professor Tu, and Xin Rui, a lecturer in the College of Food Science and Technology, Xiaojing Yang, a professor in Animal Physiology and Biochemistry, Fei Liu, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Junhe Lu, a professor in the College of Resources and Environmental Science, and Xiaomei Bie, a professor in Food Microbiology and Biotechnology.
The symposium contributed greatly to the on-going relationship between NAU and UC Davis faculty by planting seeds for future collaborations, the fruits of which will be graduate student education. These graduate students will be the foundation for tomorrow’s faculty at the One Health Center for Food Safety at Nanjing Agricultural University.