RI State Health Laboratories will enhance capabilities to identify microbiological contaminants in food and will continue active participation in FERN-directed emergency preparedness and response.

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FDA FERN Microbiology Cooperative Agreement -Project Summary This proposal is for the continuation of the previous cooperative agreement with the RI State Health Laboratories. We have been the recipient of the MCAP funding for several cycles, and continually since 2009. Previous rounds of funding allowed us to build laboratory infrastructure, including traditional culture/biochemical capabilities, molecular detection and identification instrumentation, and trained personnel to greatly enhance our ability to perform rapid microbiological identification of pathogens implicated in food borne outbreaks. In this application, we propose to build on these gains and further enhance our detection capabilities and to continue our participation in the FDA-directed food surveillance for pathogens in food, proficiency testing and method validation studies. We will also increase microbiology testing capabilities and capacity to offer even greater support to the FDA to aid the agency's food defense and food security efforts. This will also enhance laboratory preparedness for responding to local foodborne outbreaks involving contaminated (intentionally or unintentionally) food products. We will continue our efforts towards ISO 17025 accreditation, with the anticipation accreditation date in 2016.