New Hampshire Public Health Laboratories - Project Summary/Abstract The Food Safety Modernization Act Outlines a new approach to food safety that is risk-informed and preventive in focus. The New Hampshire Public Health laboratories (NH PHL) recognize that sample testing can play a greater role in helping the FDA and regulatory partners prevent contaminated products from reaching consumers. In order to develop prevention-based systems, the NH PHL will collect data and other information to help identify and address food safety hazards. Different types of sample analysis will be the focus of this project. Emergency response and emerging issue testing will be conducted to identify intentional contamination of food with microbiological pathogens, chemical poisons/toxins and/or harmful radionuclides. This testing will be conducted in response to outbreaks of foodborne illness to help identify the source of the contaminant. The NH PHL will expand routine food and environmental surveillance testing to remove adulterated food from commerce and aide regulatory inspection programs in conducting investigations. The surveillance testing will include animal food product testing for microbial pathogens and for chemical contaminants with the goal to remove adulterated animal food from commerce and aide regulatory inspection programs in conducting investigations. Food and animal product microbial pathogens will be analyzed using emergent technology such as whole genome sequencing to understand evolving genomic diversity and enhance public national genomic databases. The NH PHL will build additional capability and expand national capacity in select areas of microbiology, chemistry and radiochemistry including developing testing for cyclospora in food and environmental samples as well as allergen and radionuclide detection in human and animal food. The NH PHL will produce large quantities of data and sample outputs which will drive a risk-based and prevention focused food safety system that the State of New Hampshire and the FDA can utilize for tracking and trending, early identification of emerging issues, and evaluation for future areas of focus in support of an integrated food safety system.

Overall Project Narrative This cooperative agreement will enhance the capacity and capabilities of the New Hampshire Public Health Laboratory (NH PHL) in support of an integrated food safety system, with sample testing for food defense and surveillance being performed in all three areas of microbiology, chemistry, and radiochemistry. Human and animal food testing of microbiological and chemical contaminants including salmonella, pathogenic E. coli and toxic metals will be conducted using existing methods accredited by ISO 17025, and novel methods will be developed and expanded to enhance whole genome sequencing, detect cyclospora cayetanensis, allergens and radionuclides in food products. NH PHL will also enter agreements with regulatory agencies in New Hampshire for sample collection, and assist in validation of a novel method EAM 4.12 for the analysis of bottled water by ICP-MS.