93981 - Foodborne Risk Traceability

Academic Year 2020/2021

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Food Safety and Food Risk Management (cod. 9140)

Learning outcomes

Students will acquire knowledges on traditional and innovative methods applied in official controls for tracing backward from consumer to fork, principal bacterial pathogens found in food of animal origin and associated to foodborne illnesses. Moreover, students will be initialised to use molecular databases available internationally for tracking microbial risks aiming at improving food safety for consumers.

Course contents

  • Taxonomic classification of bacteria: genus, species, subtype
  • EU regulations related to surveillance of zoonotic bacterial pathogens, information management system and approved methods for official controls (IMSOC) for foodborne outbreaks
  • Phenotypic methods for bacterial typing: serotyping, biotyping and matrix assisted laser desorption/ionisation – time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS)-based typing
  • Genotypic methods for bacterial typing: pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE); Multilocus sequence typing (MLST); Multilocus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA), whole genome sequencing related typing (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) calling, core and whole genome MLST (cgMLST, wgMLST)
  • Genotypic and phenotypic characterisation of antimicrobial resistance
  • Molecular international databases available on the main foodborne pathogens: example of application for epidemiological studies
  • Example of application of different techniques for epidemiological typing in the food industry.

Readings/Bibliography

Notes of lectures; scientific publications

Teaching methods

Oral lectures, scientific seminaries, laboratory activities

Assessment methods

This course is part of the integrated subject "Farm Biosecurity and foodborne risk” which also includes "FARM BIOSECURITY AND ZOONOTIC DISEASES PREVENTION". Final grading of the entire integrated course is calculated as an average of the scores obtained in the two courses of " FARM BIOSECURITY AND ZOONOTIC DISEASES PREVENTION " and "Bacterial traceability and food safety". The examination commission includes teachers of both courses.

The oral examination will verify the theoretical and applicative knowledges of the student. Particularly positive will be evaluated the ability to move within the different topics and the achievement of an organic knowledge of the topics presented during the lessons.

Teaching tools

projector, computer, instruments of microbiological laboratory

Office hours

See the website of Gerardo Manfreda