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This project is funded by safefood and is a collaboration between Teagasc-Ashtown Food Research Centre (formerly The National Food Centre) (Dr. Declan J. Bolton), the Centre for Food Safety at University College Dublin (Professor Seamus Fanning) and the Health Services Executive-Southern Region (Dr. Margaret O’Sullivan).
Dr. Declan Bolton has a first class honours B.Sc. degree and a Ph.D. (Microbiology) from University College Dublin as well as a Graduate Diploma in Business Studies (NCEA) and is currently a Senior Research Officer in the Food Safety Department at Teagasc – Ashtown Food Research Centre, a national and international centre for food safety research. His previous / current research projects include: Sous Vide as a Method of Catering [AIRR CT93-1519]; The Survival and Virulence of E. coli O157 and Listeria monocytogenes in High Risk Foods; Risk-based Determination of Animal Slaughter and Food Processing Critical Control Points to Provide the Scientific Basis of Pork HACCP; European Union Risk Analysis International Network (Co-ordinator); HACCP and Hygiene Auditing in Irish Beef Abattoirs ; Evaluating the Potential for Radio Frequency Heating in the Production of High Quality Meat Products; Food Safety Challenges in Irish Consumer Refrigerated Systems; A Risk Assessment and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) for the Irish Catering Industry; Safe Foods and Assessment and Critical Evaluation of Antibiotic Resistance Transferability in the Food Chain (ACE-ART). Other research interests include various food associated pathogens including Salmonella, Campylobacter, Escherichia coli O157, L. monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus. Dr. Bolton is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Food Protection and the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.
He currently has ove 60 scientific publications and brings international perspective to his research, developed during attachment to the Eastern Regional Research Centre-United States Department of Agriculture (ERRC-USDA) where he worked on the development of food safety control and HACCP systems.
Professor Seamus Fanning
Professor of Food Safety
Professor Fanning was appointed to the Chair of Food Safety, in the School of Agriculture, Food Science & Veterinary Medicine. He graduated as a Biochemist from University College Cork and later was awarded his PhD in Molecular Microbiology. As a molecular biologist Professor Fanning has an established reputation as a researcher in the molecular genetics of bacterial pathogens and antibacterial resistance mechanisms. A former Fulbright Scholar, he has extensive links with researchers in the USA and Europe and has published widely. He is a member of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland’s Microbiology Sub-Committee, the Scientific Advisory Committee of safefood and other scientific bodies.
Professor Fanning is the Director of the Centre for Food Safety at University College Dublin.
Dr. Margaret B. O’ Sullivan MB MPH FFPHMI is a Specialist in Public Health Medicine with the Department of Public Health HSE-Southern Area in Cork. Her main infectious disease interests lie in the surveillance, prevention and control of zoonotic diseases – in particular foodborne and waterborne pathogens. Her other public health interests include tuberculosis control, food safety and obesity. She was chairperson of the report: ‘Preventing Foodborne Disease: a Focus on the Infected Food Handler’, launched by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre in 2004. An associate lecturer at University College Cork, she is currently a Board Member and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine.
Mr. James F. Buckley
Mr. Buckley is the Chief Veterinary Officer in Cork County Council, where his main responsibilities include the enforcement of veterinary public health and food hygiene legislation. He is an Honorary Associate of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, UCD and a member of the safeFood All Ireland Scientific Advisory Committee. His is a founder member of the Cork Zoonoses Committee and was elected Executive President of the Local Authority Veterinary Officers Association from 2002-2004. His was also President of Veterinary Ireland’s Public Health Committee 2002-2004. He has a particular interest in veterinary surveillance and is currently responsible for developing and managing a number of national / regional surveillance programmes on matters related to veterinary public health and ambient environmental quality.
Dr. Bláithín Maunsell (Working on project until December 2007)
Bláithín Maunsell graduated from University College Cork with a BSc (Hons) in Microbiology and a PhD in Molecular Microbiology. Her PhD research project centred on investigating the molecular regulation of protease production in Pseudomonas fluorescens. Bláithín has worked in Teagasc - Ashtown Food Research Centre (formerly The National Food Centre) in Dublin since 2003. She was employed as scientific administrator for an EU funded food safety concerted action project, the European Union Risk Analysis Information Network (EU-RAIN) until its conclusion in 2006. This project involved the organisation of a series of six international scientific conferences across Europe and the production of guidance publications on food safety management on farms, in beef, pork and lamb abattoirs, in retail and catering establishments and in domestic kitchens. Bláithín was appointed as molecular microbiologist on the Campylobacter in Ireland project in April 2006.
Ms. Emer O’Mahony
Emer O’Mahony has an honours degree in Biochemistry from University College Cork and an MSc in Forensic Science from the University of Strathclyde. She has been working as a Research Assistant with the Veterinary Food Safety Laboratory, Cork County Council since January 2005. Currently, she is involved in a National Research Surveillance programme to determine the Prevalence of Emerging Pathogens in Irish Dairy Production Holdings supplying the Farmhouse Cheese Sector. Emer has a particular expertise in the identification/enumeration and characterisation of the following pathogens: Campylobacter spp, Salmonella spp, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus. Emer is current undertaking research as part of the Campylobacter in Ireland project for her Ph.D.
Mr. Alessandro Patriarchi
Alessandro Patriarchi graduated in Veterinary Biotechnology from the “Università degli studi di Napoli FEDERICO II” in Naples, Italy. His final work (thesis) was entitled “Identification of Campylobacter coli and Campylobacter jejuni using multiplex PCR in poultry during slaughter”. He also collaborated with the University of Calabria, Italy and had the opportunity to participate in a programme investigating expression of the oestrogen receptor (ERalpha/ERbeta) in pig spermatozoa. He was involved in the morphological and biochemical analyses of pig semen.
Alessandro is current undertaking research as part of the Campylobacter in Ireland project for his Ph.D. in Teagasc - Ashtown Food Research Centre (formerly The National Food Centre), Dublin and is working in collaboration with University College Dublin. |
