Project Summary/Abstract: Discipline B Chemistry, Track 1 FDA LFFM (U19), FOA PAR-20-105 One primary focus of the Food and Drug Laboratory Branch (FDLB) Chemistry Section is the monitoring of food and drug products to ensure a safe supply for public consumption. The primary objective of the food defense project is to provide surge capacity by expanding the laboratory-testing capability and capacity for toxic chemicals and toxins in human food products by means of food defense surveillance testing, outbreak or incidence investigation testing, and participating in testing requested by FDA for possible chemical threats to food supply and in national and regional security exercises. We propose to maintain and improve national and regional chemical response capacity in the analyses of inorganic and organic contaminants on different food matrices that should cover a variety of food commodities such as fresh produce (vegetables and fruits), manufactured beverages (juice, bottled water, and alcoholic drinks, etc.), milk and related dairy products, baby foods, spices, and seafoods, etc. We will maintain a well-trained staff who are proficient in all the major analytical methods FERN has developed such as the GC-MS / LC-MS for poison / toxin screen (CHE.0006 and CHE.0007), the ICP-MS (EAM 4.7, EAM 4.10, EAM 4.11) for metals and speciation analyses, and other technologies such as XRF and ELISA for faster screening to increase our surge capacity.