Maintenance and Enhancement of Iso/iec 17025 Accreditation and Whole Genome Sequencing For State Food Testing Laboratories

Commonwealth of Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services (DCLS)Maintenance and Enhancement of ISO/IEC 17025 Accreditation and Whole Genome Sequencing for State Food Testing LaboratoriesRFA-FD-17-010SF424: Other Project InformationProject Summary:DCLS is the public health laboratory for the Commonwealth of Virginia and offers a widevariety of laboratory testing services for state and federal agencies, local governmentsand other states in support of public health, environmental protection and emergencyresponse. DCLS provides surveillance and emergency response testing of foodsamples for the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS)Food Safety Program by offering nearly comprehensive testing of food samples bymicrobiology, chemistry and radiochemical methods. DCLS obtained ISO/IEC 17025accreditation in January 2017 for five food testing methods (three microbiology and twochemistry methods) and proposes to maintain and expand this accreditation scope toinclude up to two additional methods and one new technology. DCLS? long term goal isto integrate ISO/IEC standards for all methodologies for food safety testing required bythe VDACS manufactured food regulatory program. DCLS proposes to analyzemanufactured food surveillance samples by ISO/IEC scope methods as a continuationof the sampling agreement currently established with the VDACS Food Safety Programfor which high risk samples are targeted from retail and manufacturing establishments.DCLS is a participating partner in the FDA CFSAN GenomeTrakr Network andproposes to further enhance the GenomeTrakr Network pathogen databases by sharinggenome sequences of 400 pathogen isolates from food, environmental and animalsources annually. The genomic information made available through the GenomeTrakrNetwork can identify food products potentially associated with an outbreak, assist withtraceback of contaminated food ingredients and compliance monitoring of sites withprevious pathogen contamination issues.