The Centers for disease control and Prevention reports roughly 48 million people become coming from a foodborne illness, 128,000 are hospitalized, 3,000 die annually – making the safety of the global food supply an expanding concern.
Researchers like Iowa State University’s Byron Brehm-Stecher are confronting the dispute head-on.
Brehm-Stecher, a user professor in food science and human nutrition who from 2015 to 2017 has held the inaugural dean’s faculty fellowship from the College of Human Sciences, studies the detection and removing foodborne pathogens like salmonella and listeria.
His studies funded to some extent by his College of Human Sciences endowed fellowship that’s provided $30,000 annually for a couple years, allowing him to finance a postdoctoral research position.
“Successful research requires several key ingredients: ingenuity, luck, groups of talented people, funding, and time,” Brehm-Stecher said.
In his time at Iowa State, Brehm-Stecher has secured funding in excess of $5 million from private and non-private sources. He acquired a $60,000 flow cytometer – a computer that allows the rapid detection of bacteria in foods and beverages – for his rapid microbial detection and control laboratory by submitting a fantastic essay.
Armed with cutting-edge technology, dedicated researchers, and also the drive to really make the world a safer place, the Brehm-Stecher lab studies functional food ingredients, those that exhibit health-promoting or disease-preventing benefits.
Brehm-Stecher said these substances might be stripped away from natural, plant-based sources, including garlic, tea leaf, yet others.
Some functional food ingredients possess chelating activity – a chance to bind metal ions like iron, magnesium, or calcium. These metals could possibly be of nutritional or structural importance to pathogenic bacteria, so chelators have the potential to impact cellular processes decreasing the fitness of pathogens including salmonella.
“We’re studying natural molecules and testing their chelation ability,” Brehm-Stecher said. “Although synthetic compounds can make good preservatives, food companies want something to the label that ingredient-conscious consumers will embrace, including naturally-sourced chelators.”
“Ideally, functional ingredients will act together to produce a greater effect than expected with the amount of their individual activities,” he was quoted saying. “In a synergistic combination, antimicrobials interact to pack it a more substantial punch.”
In with regard to the chelator work, Brehm-Stecher’s operate on listeria prevention, funded because of the Midwest Dairy Association, is helping the dairy industry combat the difficult pathogen.
“Listeria is able to persist in dairy production environments, making its home in difficult-to-clean fixtures like floor drains,” he said. “We’re excited about developing new sanitizers that aren’t easily rinsed away and this brings your struggle to listeria where it dwells.”
Whether in drains or deli drawers, microorganisms pose a reduced threat under Brehm-Stecher’s watch. He said he believes employing effective partnerships, researchers may offer more sources of combatting human pathogens.
“Collaborative efforts, like synergistic antimicrobials, pack a much bigger punch and help supply the food industry with solid alternatives,” Brehm-Stecher said.
