Now that the university’s food safety center has secured an $11 million grant, officials say identifying toxins in dietary supplements, teaching exporters to safely raise crops and training the next generation of food inspectors are achievable goals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will allocate this grant over the next five years, ensuring the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition — a partnership between this university and the FDA — will receive $2.2 million annually to support its work to resolve food safety issues in the U.S. and around the world.
“This will allow us to continue to build up on our programs that have already been developed and create new programs to meet the needs of food safety domestically and internationally,” said Jianghong Meng, the director of JIFSAN.
The center, located off Paint Branch Parkway, has received about $30 million from the FDA since it was first established in 1996. With an annual budget ranging from $3 million to $3.5 million, these funds from the FDA will cover a significant part of JIFSAN’s budget, Meng said.
“If we don’t get funding from the FDA, we have to cut back our programs, we can’t really develop new programs and we have to look for other funding sources,” Meng said.
JIFSAN has been working to “diversify its funding sources,” Meng said, noting the food safety center has received support from the state, this university and the Department of Agriculture.
One of JIFSAN’s major missions is providing food safety training at home and abroad. Instructors train farmers in foreign countries to ensure their produce is safe to export and consume. Foreign professionals also travel to the center to learn how to inspect their food production facilities and meet U.S. and international food safety standards.
JIFSAN researchers are also developing a procedure to find pathogens that can contaminate food supplies, as well as studying toxins in dietary supplements and ingredients in nutritional supplements that may be harmful to pregnant women, Meng said.
In addition, JIFSAN has recruited more than 300 students from this university to serve as interns and eventually work for the FDA, he added.
“JIFSAN serves the bridge between the university and the FDA,” Meng said.
An FDA spokesman said this partnership with JIFSAN allows the FDA to leverage its resources. For instance, JIFSAN pays for travel expenses when instructors teach overseas, and their international hosts cover living expenses. If the FDA had to cover all of these expenses, it could only fund one instructor’s international work annually, whereas JIFSAN can fund two or three, Meng said.
Cheng-i Wei, the dean of the agriculture and natural resources college, said collaborating with the FDA through JIFSAN is a “team effort” to address food safety and food security.
“It is an honor to work with the FDA,” Wei said. “The reason they will work with us is because we have good programs and good people, too.”
