Increasing the Capability and Capacity of Microbiological and Chemical Testing to Support an Integrated Food Defense and Food Safety System Overall Component Project Summary / Abstract The Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) Consumer Protection Laboratory (CPL) and Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (ADDL) will strengthen the national food supply chain and enhance federal and state regulatory effectiveness in food safety and defense, supporting the Food Safety Modernization Act and the Food Emergency Response Network. The agency proposes to participate in all US FDA initiated food defense activities related to animal or human food including proficiency tests, surveillance activities, triage exercises, national security event exercises and any other testing as requested by the FDA where suspected or credible threats to the food supply are present. CPL will maintain operational readiness in supplies, instrumentation and personnel should they be activated for a rapid response capable of testing at least 50 microbiological and 75 chemical samples. ODA-CPL will also participate in state- initiated product testing of human and animal food products, testing at minimum 2,000 samples total for microbiological and chemical contaminants. ODA-CPL will incorporate and implement routine Cyclospora and allergen screening in human or animal food products. ODA- ADDL will enhance the FDA’s GenomeTrakr network and the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s Pathogen databases through Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) and uploading of at least 400 different human food, animal food or environmental isolates, providing support for other state and federal partners and participating in any method validation studies as requested. To improve communications with federal partners and minimize event response time, ODA-CPL will enhance their existing data system, USALIMS, to integrate with the FDA ORA’s National Food Safety Data Exchange. Lastly, ODA-CPL proposes to participate in a multi-laboratory validation study of testing bottled water for metals by ICP-MS. Based on the current funding opportunity, the agency requests $1,360,000 in project period 1 for samples, supplies, payroll, services and equipment as needed to support all projects proposed and up to $5,060,000 in additional funding as currently offered by FDA for the remaining project periods.