Culture Independent Testing and Monitoring for Controlled Environment Food Safety and Crop Protection

1. Construct a database of microbiome profiles of operating commercial hydroponic systems in Ontario. 2. Develop a novel hybrid sequencing method, MetaMicroBiomics, for robust, accurate and sensitive microbiome monitoring. 3. Identification of key marker genes for hydroponic systems using shotgun metagenomics data. 4. Construct a current overview of emerging sequence-based and protein-based technologies for rapid / on-site / continuous biomarker monitoring