S02 - Bacterial Resistance to Antimicrobials: Current Trends and Future Perspectives

8:30 Antimicrobial Resistance in Bacteria — A Global Issue — DAvid White, FDA-NARMS, Laurel, MD, USA

9:00 Incidence of Antimicrobial Resistant Pathogens in Ready-to-Eat Foods — Paula Fedorka-Cray, USDA, Athens, GA, USA

9:30 Mechanisms of Antimicrobial Resistance in Bacteria — Siddhartha Thakur, FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, Laurel, MD, USA

10:00 Break

10:30 Detection Methods for Testing Resistance/Susceptibility Genes in Bacteria — Yanhoang Liu, USDA-ARS-ERRC, Wyndmoor, PA, USA

11:00 Antibiotic Resistance of Bacteria in Meat Animal Species — Kenneth Bischoff, USDA-ARS-NCAUR, Peoria, IL, USA

11:30 Potential for Resistance to Antimicrobial Hurdles — John Sofos, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

Abstract
Antimicrobials are commonly used in a variety of foods to guard against foodborne pathogens. The present day consumers demand fresh tasting foods with high nutritional quality as well as microbiologically safe foods. To meet this demand the food industry had adopted the hurdle concept wherein a combination of technologies is used to process foods. This allows use of low doses of antimicrobials or low intensities of each hurdle that will help maintain the sensory attributes and attack the microbes from several targets. Antimicrobials are an important part of the hurdle concept and these are often used with other technologies such as high pressure, heat, and irradiation to control microbial growth. Although antimicrobials have been used for the production of foods with extended shelf life, prolonged and extensive use has created bacterial strains that are resistant to these preservatives. As a result, today antimicrobial resistance is a major problem faced by the food industry and the industry has incurred huge costs to overcome this problem. Research provides sufficient evidence that antibiotic resistant strains have emerged in meat animals. One example of such resistance is the multiple antibiotic resistant Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 that emerged among the livestock population in UK in the 1990s. Therefore, it is important to understand the emergence of such resistance among bacteria, the causes of resistance and how this can be prevented. This symposium will help understand the emergence of antimicrobial resistance among bacteria, causes for such resistance, foods that are primarily affected by this resistance emergence and what preventive measures can be taken to avoid or prevent such emergence.