# Wadsworth Center's Radiochemical, Microbiological and Chemical Testing for Food Defense and Capability Development

> **NIH FDA U19** · WADSWORTH CENTER · 2020 · $1,085,000

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
(Overall):
The overarching goal of this proposal is to leverage the Wadsworth Center’s considerable laboratory capabilities
and capacity as a world-class public health laboratory and research institute, coupled with its scientific expertise
to create a first-class integrated Radiochemical, Microbiological and Chemical Testing Program for Food
Defense and Capability Development that will serve the future needs of the FDA’s Food Emergency Response
Network (FERN). Building on its current success as an FDA-FERN Cooperative Agreement laboratory for the
Surveillance of Foods for Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Radioactivity; as an FDA Center for Food Safety and
Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) Cooperative Agreement GenomeTrakr laboratory; and as a USDA Food Safety
Inspection Service (FSIS) Cooperative Agreement laboratory for Microbiology and Chemistry Food Defense, the
Wadsworth Center will provide key leadership, scientific expertise and analytical support to FERN under the
proposed Laboratory Flexible Funding Model (LFFM). From microbiology, biodefense, radiochemistry and
nuclear counting technologies, to chemical testing for emergency response and preparedness based on state of
the art mass spectrometry, Wadsworth is often the laboratory of last resort that NY state government agencies
turn to for help. The scope of this proposal includes: Microbiology Food Defense; Sequencing of isolates in the
Wadsworth Center’s core sequencing facility, and the sequence and metadata uploaded to the GenomeTrakr
umbrella project at NCBI; method development for molecular detection of Cyclospora cayetanensis in fresh
produce using Real-Time PCR [4]; Chemistry Food Defense for organic and inorganic toxins; Radiological
screening and quantification for  , and  emitters in food products; and development of a method for arsenic
speciation in seafood by LC-ICP-MS.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10173136
- **Project number:** 1U19FD007089-01
- **Recipient organization:** WADSWORTH CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Christina Egan
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** FDA
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,085,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-01 → 2025-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10173136

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10173136, Wadsworth Center's Radiochemical, Microbiological and Chemical Testing for Food Defense and Capability Development (1U19FD007089-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10173136. Licensed CC0.

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