Achieving A Nationally Integrated Food Safety System: Maintaining and Enhancing Iso/iec 17025 Accreditation At The Ct Agricultural Experiment Station

Title- ?Achieving a Nationally Integrated Food Safety System: Maintaining andEnhancing 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 Sequencingfor State Food Testing Laboratories,? specifically as part of Competition A: ISO/IEC 17025Accreditation Maintenance and Enhancement. The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station(CAES) Department of Analytical Chemistry (DAC) has a 142-year history of food safetyresearch, 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/IEC17025:2005 Accreditation for Food Testing Laboratories? Cooperative Agreement Program(CAP). Under the latter program, the CAES DAC was awarded ISO 17025 Accreditation by theAmerican Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) in December 2016. In addition tobeing the sole laboratory in Connecticut providing chemical testing for the MFRPS program, theCAES DAC participates a broader surveillance and monitoring program to ensure the safety offood in the state of CT. The primary goal of this proposal is to acquire the necessary funding tomaintain and enhance the laboratories ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation so as to support FDA effort toestablish a nationally integrated food system. Specifically, this CAP will ensure that chemical foodanalyses on behalf of the State manufactured food regulatory programs are conducted within thescope of an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratory, will strengthen the collaboration between ltheCAES DAC and the State manufactured regulatory program, and will increase the number of Stateof 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 ConsumerProtection (DCP) and includes the FDA MFRPS Program. Currently, food samples are collectedannually by DCP inspectors and brought to the CAES DAC for chemical analysis. The samplesare subjected to validated in-house homogenization and extraction/digestion protocols, followedby 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 massspectrometry (ICP/MS). The food matrices to be analyzed under the scope of accreditation arethose 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 proposedwork is detailed in our Research Strategy but will involve expansion of the scope of accreditationto additional food matrices, as well as to additional pesticides and heavy metals, and also dedicatedefforts to meet the soon to be released ISO 17025:2017 standard. The CAES DAC has demonstrated the expertise, capability, and adaptability to fully meetthe objectives of this RFA through our successful participation in the ?ISO/IEC 17025:2005Accreditation for Food Testing Laboratories? CAP and through our 12 years of work as a FERNcCAP laboratory. Receipt of this new award from FDA will significantly enhance the ability ofthe 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 andthe Food Safety Modernization Act.