ARMADA

Foodborne diseases are a public health problem worldwide. Six hundred million people, or 1 in 10 people in the world, become ill and 420,000 die each year due to foodborne diseases after eating contaminated food, with pathogenic bacteria being one of the main causes. Thus, the main hypothesis of this proposal is that the emergence of resistant genetic variants of pathogenic bacteria in the agri-food chain (from farm to table) compromises the effectiveness of food preservation treatments and cleaning and disinfection protocols, especially in fresh, minimally processed and ready-to-eat foods. Among the resistant variants, not only those that emerge during food processing, but also antibiotic resistant bacteria (AMR) that reach the food chain, and whose role is unknown, should be considered as a real biohazard.

ARMADA addresses this scientific gap by providing new scientific knowledge to understand the role of genetic variations in microbial resistance of Salmonella spp. and thus anticipate the danger that the emergence of resistant variants may cause for food safety and public health. Through an integrative and multidisciplinary approach, we expect to obtain and characterize a large collection of variants resistant to current and emerging methods of food preservation, to the most common biocides used in the food industry and to the main antibiotics of clinical interest, which will allow us to know their phenotype and the role of the genetic determinants of their resistance. The expected results will describe those Salmonella AMR resistant to food preservation methods and cleaning and disinfection procedures, as well as the different strategies that Salmonella spp. follow within the food chain to increase their resistance and, consequently, survive these processes.

The knowledge thus acquired will allow us to validate the efficacy of current and emerging food preservation methods and cleaning and disinfection protocols along the food chain; and to propose more efficient alternatives to improve food safety and avoid risks to public health by preventing foodborne diseases and the spread of AMR through the food chain.

The principal investigators of this proposal have extensive experience in the design of food preservation treatments with thermal and non-thermal technologies, with emphasis on the development of combined processes; in the isolation of resistant variants through evolution assays with various food preservation technologies, and their phenotypic and genotypic characterization. Since, in this new proposal, in addition to mutants generated in the food industry, AMR bacteria will be taken into account, we have expanded the research team with qualified researchers from our own department and research institute in food hygiene and safety, with experience in AMR, and the working team with international experts in bioinformatics, molecular biology and AMR.