Achieving a Nationally Integrated Food Safety System: Maintaining and Enhancing ISO/IEC 17025 Accreditation at the CT Agricultural Experiment Station

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Title- “Achieving a Nationally Integrated Food Safety System: Maintaining and Enhancing ISO/IEC 17025 Accreditation at the CT Agricultural Experiment Station” Project Summary- This proposal is being submitted in response to RFA-FD-17-010 “Maintenance and enhancement of ISO/IEC 17025 Accreditation and Whole Genome Sequencing for State Food Testing Laboratories,” specifically as part of Competition A: ISO/IEC 17025 Accreditation Maintenance and Enhancement. The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) Department of Analytical Chemistry (DAC) has a 142-year history of food safety research, including 12 years as a member of the FDA Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) Chemistry Cooperative Agreement Program (cCAP) and 5 years of funding under the “ISO/IEC 17025:2005 Accreditation for Food Testing Laboratories” Cooperative Agreement Program (CAP). Under the latter program, the CAES DAC was awarded ISO 17025 Accreditation by the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) in December 2016. In addition to being the sole laboratory in Connecticut providing chemical testing for the MFRPS program, the CAES DAC participates a broader surveillance and monitoring program to ensure the safety of food in the state of CT. The primary goal of this proposal is to acquire the necessary funding to maintain and enhance the laboratories ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation so as to support FDA effort to establish a nationally integrated food system. Specifically, this CAP will ensure that chemical food analyses on behalf of the State manufactured food regulatory programs are conducted within the scope of an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratory, will strengthen the collaboration between lthe CAES DAC and the State manufactured regulatory program, and will increase the number of State of CT samples collected and analyzed for surveillance purposes annually. The laboratories current scope of accreditation covers CAES DAC “Market Basket” program. This program is conducted in coordination with the CT Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) and includes the FDA MFRPS Program. Currently, food samples are collected annually by DCP inspectors and brought to the CAES DAC for chemical analysis. The samples are subjected to validated in-house homogenization and extraction/digestion protocols, followed by analysis for pesticides by gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (GC/MS/MS) and by liquid chromatography with high resolution mass spectrometric detection (LC/HRMS). Separately, select samples are analyzed for total arsenic by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP/MS). The food matrices to be analyzed under the scope of accreditation are those typically encountered in our Market Basket survey, which includes juices, ciders, baby food, and other processed fruits/vegetables. The maintenance and enhancement portion of the proposed work is detailed in our Research Strategy but will involve expansion of the scope of accreditation to additional food matrices, as well as to additional pesticides and heavy metals, and also dedicated efforts to meet the soon to be released ISO 17025:2017 standard. The CAES DAC has demonstrated the expertise, capability, and adaptability to fully meet the objectives of this RFA through our successful participation in the “ISO/IEC 17025:2005 Accreditation for Food Testing Laboratories” CAP and through our 12 years of work as a FERN cCAP laboratory. Receipt of this new award from FDA will significantly enhance the ability of the CAES DAC specifically, and CT in general, to meet the program goals laid out in the RFA, and as described by the Food Safety Task For Program, the Partnership for Food Protection and the Food Safety Modernization Act.