Abstract Administrative Core Texas Food Defense and Animal Food Product Testing for Microbiological, Chemical and Radiological Hazards, Genome Sequencing and Special Projects. The Office of the Texas State Chemist (OTSC) is the government entity within Texas that regulates animal feed. OTSC is administratively housed within Texas A&M AgriLife Research. OTSC is comprised of a regulatory agency named in statue the “Texas Feed and Fertilizer Control Service” hereafter referred to as FFCS and is responsible for administering the Texas Commercial Feed Control Act (Chapter 141 of the Texas Agriculture Code), the Texas Commercial Fertilizer Control Act (Chapter 63 of the Texas Agriculture Code), and the Texas Administrative Codes Title 4 Agriculture chapters 61 titled Commercial Feed Rules, chapter 65 titled Commercial Fertilizer Rules and chapter 63 titled Pet Food Rules. OTSC is led by the State Chemist and Director of OTSC. The state chemist directs FFCS and the Agricultural Analytical Services (AAS) which is the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited lab authorized to analyze regulatory samples for OTSC. FFCS is comprised of 14 field investigators (13 possess FDA credentials) and all are trained in how to collect official samples for microbiological and chemical contaminants following FDA procedures and follow chain-of-custody protocol to ensure sample integrity through sampling, labeling, shipment, receipt, preparation, analysis and reporting. The 13 AAS chemists and 3 PhD scientists are qualified to perform analyses described in the microbiology, chemistry and radiochemistry food defense and surveillance projects. OTSC will develop whole genome sequencing capability (capability expansion) while participating in the WGS project using the Texas A&M AgriLife Genomics and Bioinformatics Service in year one. The OTSC laboratory is located in College Station, TX and is equipped with the electrical capacity, water purity, and air handling system to perform all analyses and support new instrumentation contained in this proposal. The project management plan includes monthly meetings by discipline (microbiology, chemistry, radiochemistry) with minutes and action items reported in a document control system. AAS will expand its ISO/IEC 17025:2017 scope to include new capabilities added through the Lab Flexible Funding Model. The annual management review and monthly budget reviews will also assist the project director to track project performance against deliverables using the document control system.