Image Credit: Edwin Remsberg
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – To help enhance the safety of the global food supply, the University of Maryland's Center for Food Safety and Security Systems (CFS3) is formally partnering with the University of Sao Paulo’s Food Research Center (FoRC) in Brazil. Leaders of the two university’s centers recently established a Memorandum of Understanding to promote their mutual interests.
Dr. Robert Buchanan, Professor and Director of the CFS3, and Dr. Bernadette Dora Gombossy de Melo Franco, Provost, Professor and Director for the FoRC, will be leading their respective university centers’ collaborative efforts. The two center leaders will work together to identify research, education, and outreach projects related to food safety, food technology, food safety risk analysis and predictive food microbiology – an emerging field which studies the responses of microorganisms in foods to environmental factors like temperature and pH.
“Like the United States, Brazil feeds a large portion of the world population and, therefore, has to be a major player in ensuring the safety of the global food supply,” said Buchanan. “Combining efforts in our common cause across the hemispheres makes good sense and will hopefully lead to international funding sources for research and educational opportunities for students at both universities.”
About the Center for Food Safety and Security Systems: Created in 2006 by an endowment from UMD alumnus Robert Facchinia ’77, the Center for Food Safety and Security Systems (CFS3) is located within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland. The center was established to assemble and coordinate the university’s extensive food safety and food defense research, education, and outreach capabilities in order to make meaningful improvements in food protection at the regional, national and international levels.
