Genomic Perspectives on Foodborne Illness

Description

David Lipman, senior science adviser in bioinformatics and genomics at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, will give a talk titled "Genomic Perspectives on Foodborne Illness" for the Institute for Computational Medicine. Joel Bader will host.

This is a hybrid event; to attend virtually, use the Zoom link.

Abstract:

While outbreaks of foodborne illness receive much attention, they include only a small fraction of cases. To learn more about non outbreak cases, we use bacterial genomes generated for outbreak detection and identify clusters of closely related disease-causing isolates. Small clusters account for most cases. A high fraction have cases from multiple states, suggesting contamination at central food distribution sites. As previously observed, illness is especially common in the very young, at least partially due to greater susceptibility. Most cases in infants, who consume only breast milk and infant formula, cluster with cases from older people, implicating cross-contamination from noninfant food or early feeding of complementary foods. Analysis of such genetic clusters is a valuable tool for studying sporadic food poisoning.