The project at a glance

What?

This is a three-year project for the "Development of models and efficient numerical tools for the control of bacterial RESISTANCE to antimicrobials in the food industry". The idea is funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness in collaboration with the European Regional Development Fund (Proyectos de I+D+I para jóvenes investigadores sin vinculación o con vinculación temporal Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica Subdirección General de Proyectos de Investigación, DPI2014-54085-JIN)

Why?

Resistance of bacteria to antimicrobials is a current concern in Europe and world-wide as is stressed by the scientific community and contemplated in different regulations. As a result, the food industry has become over-conservative in applying biocide treatments. While the use of new technologies such as active packaging could reduce the use of biocides, further research is needed in this area and currently their application is very limited in the industry. Nevertheless, despite the high concentrations of biocides generally used, studies in food factories have detected persistent and resistant strains of microorganisms, which will decrease the effectiveness of future biocide-treatments. Moreover, these resistant bacteria could potentially contaminate food and not only reduce its shelf-life, but also contribute to increase the resistance to antibiotics, which is one of the main concerns in medical research. As a consequence, the food industry should start considering biocide-resistance in their risk assessment and management procedures.

How?

The development of new software to detect and control risk probability of bacterial infection and resistance may contribute substantially to risk assessment and management, resulting in safer and healthier food products. In addition, these techniques are tested on different case studies of interest for the food industry. Last but not least, resulting models of biocide-resistance could contribute to the understanding of antibiotic resistance, which has wide implications in the treatment of infectious diseases.

Who?

Principal Investigator: Míriam R. García¹
In collaboration with: Marta López Cabo², Xosé A. Vázquez, Eva Balsa Canto¹ and Antonio A. Alonso¹

Where?

¹Bioprocess Engineering Group and ² Microbiology and Technology of Marine products. IIM - CSIC, Vigo Spain

When?

Starting 16 October 2015.

News & Events

Oct. 2018

• End of the project, to see more news and events please go to Míriam R. García's webpage

Sep. 2018

• Attending the Spanish Annual Workshop in Automatica ( XXXIX Jornadas de Automática) to present a work in collaboration with Miguel Mauricio about "Computer-Aided Design of Active Packaging/Food System for extended shelf life"

Jul. 2018

• Attending the 11th European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology

Jun. 2018

• Míriam R. García will visit the Department of Mathematics at the Imperial College London for 3 weeks to collaborate with
  • Diego Oyarzún to control the Morbidostat dynamics
  • Philipp Thomas to estimate different bacterial growth aspects using DNA flow cytometry distributions
  • Andrea Weisse (NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance) to study evolution of resistance in different environments

May. 2018

• Our work Optimization of E. coli inactivation by benzalkonium chloride reveals the importance of quantifying the inoculum effect on chemical disinfection was accepted for publication in the Frontiers in Microbiology, section Food Microbiology, research topic Foodborne Pathogens: Hygiene and Safety

Apr. 2018

• Attending the 10th biennial FOODSIM2018 where we talked about:
  • Smart Sensors to assess and to anticipate Fish Quality Evolution
  • Stochastic Methods to model Bacterial Growth and Food Safety Risks: Some Perspectives

Mar. 2018

• Our work "Modeling the dynamics of antimicrobial resistance in a Morbidostat" was selected to be presented as oral talk in the 11th European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ECMTB 2018) .

Jan. 2018

• Attending the IV Simposio CEA de Modelado, Simulación Y Optimización. Here we will talk about "Mathematical modeling, simulation and optimization applied to food industry processes"

Dec. 2017

• Our work Stochastic individual-based modelling of bacterial growth and division using flow cytometry was accepted for publication in the Frontiers in Microbiology, section Systems Microbiology, research topic The Individual Microbe: Single-Cell Analysis and Agent-Based Modelling

Nov. 2017

• The Science Week Eva Balsa-Canto and Míriam R. García with other members of the Bioprocess Engineering Group presented the street fair "the maths that feeds us"

Oct. 2017

• Journal of Food Engineering has just accepted our research work "A mathematical model to predict early quality attributes in hake during storage at low temperature"
• Attending the EFFoST conference

Sept. 2017

• Attending 10th International Conference of Predictive Microbiology in Food. If you are around and interested in our work, please come to one of our talks or to our poster.

Aug. 2017

• Our work "New model of ATP degradation to accurately predict fish quality and reduce food waste" was selected to be presented as oral talk in the EFFoST conference .

Jun. 2017

• Attending the PACBB (11th International Conference on Practical Applications of Computational Biology & Bioinformatics).

May. 2017

• Our works were selected for the 10th International Conference of Predictive Microbiology in Food (2 oral talks and 1 poster):
  • Modelling biocide and bacteria interaction in chemical disinfection
  • Estimating bacterial population growth rates from flow cytometry
  • Modelling and identification of relevant pathways for nucleotide degradation in fresh hake during storage

Mar. 2017

• Our work was selected for the International Conferencee on Practical Applications of Computational Biology & Bioinformatics . The research focused on a normalisation strategy to optimally design experiments in computational biology. The methodology is validated in a model simulating the bacterial SOS response

Dec. 2016

• Journal of food engineering has accepted our paper "A model for the biochemical degradation of inosine monophosphate in hake (Merluccius merluccius)" (Article link, Eprint link)

Nov. 2016

• Journal of food engineering has accepted our paper "Smart sensor to predict retail fresh fish quality under ice storage" (Article link, Eprint link)

Oct. 2016

• Attending the FOSBE (International Federation of Automatic Control).

Sep. 2016

• Attending the IFAC Workshop on Thermodynamic Foundation of Mathematical Systems Theory.
• Attending the EMBO workshop of Cell Size regulation.

Aug. 2016

• Another of our works was selected for a IFAC workshop talk. In the IFAC Workshop on Thermodynamic Foundation of Mathematical Systems Theory Míriam R. García will talk about individual-based models using the modified Fokker-Planck equation.

Jul. 2016

• Our work was selected for a IFAC conference talk. The research focused on modelling cell size variability using flow cytometry and it will be presented in October in FOSBE
• Attending the FoodMicro 2016 Conference. Here we present a poster about designing a smart sensor for predicting cod quality and shelf-life (Poster) . They were very interesting sessions about AMR and Risk analysis, see the abstracts of the conference here

Jun. 2016

• Jorge Macridachis has started his Master intership. During three months he will model the growth of Lactococcus lactis, one of the most important microorganisms in the dairy industry. Using the software AMIGO2 and experimental data provided by our collaborator Marta López Cabo, he will explore aspects related with parameter uncertainty and optimal experimental desing.

May 2016

• Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition (ranked 2nd among journals of Food Science and technology, IF 2015: 5.492) has accepted our research work "Towards predictive food process models: A protocol for parameter estimation"

Mar. 2016

• Our abstract "Modelling microbial spoilage as the bases to predict fish quality indexes" has been accepted in the 25th International ICFMH Conference - FoodMicro 2016

Nov. 2015

• The Science Week Eva Balsa-Canto and Míriam R. García with other members of the Bioprocess Engineering Group presented the street fair "the maths that feeds us"
• Attending the 29th EFFoST International Conference. Here we present a poster analysing the influence of microorganisms in fish shelf-life using microbiology modelling ("Prediction and assessment of retail hake freshness during storage"). We also contibute with another work entitled "Towards Predictive models in Food Engineering: Dos and Don'ts"

Oct. 2015

• Attending the BioMicroWorld Conference. There were several interested talks related with the experimental workpackage of the project (WP1: Analytical techniques and experiments). Most of these talks were included in the conference's hot topic "Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy. Antimicrobial resistance".
  In this conference Graciela Ramilo also presented two posters: "Biocontrol of Staphylococcus aureus by bacteriophage K in the food industry" and "Assessment of tolerance development in L. monocytogenes-E. coli dual-species biofilms to Pronase and Benzalkonium chloride treatment"