Achieving a nationally integrated food safety system: Maintaining and enhancing ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation at the CT Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES)

Project SummaryTitle- ?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-19-018?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 144-year history of food safetyresearch, including 14 years as a member of the FDA Food Emergency Response Network (FERN)Chemistry Cooperative Agreement Program (cCAP), 5 years of funding under the ?ISO/IEC17025:2005 Accreditation for Food Testing Laboratories? Cooperative Agreement Program(CAP), as well as the 2017-2019 Bridge Grant ISO CAP. Under the latter program two programs,the CAES DAC was awarded ISO 17025 Accreditation by the American Association forLaboratory Accreditation (A2LA) in December 2016, followed by three scope expansions in 2017-2019. We specifically note that our last assessment was to the 2017 ISO Standard. 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 theCAES 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. 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 the subsequent 2017-2019 FDA ISO CAP,as well as through our 14 years of work as a FERN cCAP laboratory. Receipt of this new awardfrom 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 President?s Food SafetyWorking Group, the Partnership for Food Protection and the Food Safety Modernization Act.