Maintenance and Enhancement of ISO/IEC 17025 Accreditation and Whole Genome Sequencing for State Food Testing Laboratories

The intended outcome of this cooperative agreement is to advance the goal of a national food safety system by supporting and enhancing state food laboratory activities including:1) Ensuring microbiological and chemical food analyses performed on behalf of the State manufactured food regulatory programs are conducted within the scope of an International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/ International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 17025 accredited laboratory;2) Strengthening the collaboration between the laboratories and State manufactured food regulatory programs;3) Increasing the number of State samples collected and analyzed for surveillance purposes annually;4) Developing a stronger international rapid surveillance system for pathogen traceback through the GenomeTrackr network using a minimum set of metadata fields for all food and environmental isolates; and5) Providing additional support to the State food laboratories through an outside association to offer trainings, workshops, and educational resources to both awardees under this cooperative agreement and to unfunded laboratories seeking ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation.