FST research was the antidote at the 2024 CeZAP Infectious Disease Research Symposium

The Center for Emerging, Zoonotic, and Arthropod-borne Pathogens (CeZAP) held its 2024 Infectious Disease Research Symposium last month, and the Department of Food Science and Technology was well represented.

The symposium is held annually to give Hokie faculty and students the opportunity to network, share their research, and learn about some of the outstanding infectious disease research being performed at Virginia Tech. FST’s proficiency in microbiology and food safety research was on full display among this year’s more than 54 oral and 121 poster presentations. 

The department's newest addition to the food microbiology faculty, Rachel Cheng, co-chaired the morning general presentation session. Cheng’s research focuses on the strategies that foodborne pathogens use to colonize and cause disease in their host. Many of her grad students presented research she co-authored at the event’s food science-heavy second poster session.

Doctoral student Saehah Yi was featured at the top of the environmental microbiology breakout session with an oral presentation on her research on diarrheal illness originating from poultry products in the Chobe region of Botswana — a big honor amongst Virginia Tech’s infectious disease researchers. Yi and her advisor Monica Ponder’s work focuses heavily on the impact of antibiotic resistance on the spread and treatment of these illnesses. This work will only become more vital in the coming years as antibiotic resistance — when infectious bacteria and viruses no longer respond to the drugs that treat them — continues to grow as a global issue.

The presentation Yi gave, “Characterization of Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli Isolated from poultry in the Chobe region of Botswana by molecular methods including whole genome sequencing,” was co-authored by recent graduate Auja Bywater and Ponder.

At the symposium’s first poster session, Department of Biological Sciences graduate student Elizabeth Burrell presented her team’s research on how farm-raised trout's age and genetics affect their intestinal bacteria communities. FST resident aquaculture authority David Kuhn co-authored the project. Kuhn’s work aims to help the mariculture industry by addressing practical issues in hatchery-raising fish and improving animal health.

The event’s second poster session featured food science heavily, with six FST graduate students presenting their work:

• Bhaswati Chowdhury (Ph.D., Advisor: Rachel Cheng) - Characterization of the Salmonella surface proteome to aid in the development of novel control and detection methods

• Diego Fredes-Garcia (MSLFS, Advisor: Rachel Cheng) - Phylogenetic analysis supports the use of invA as a robust target to classify Salmonella species and subspecies

• Rakib Ehsan (Ph.D., Advisor: Yifan Cheng) - Phylogenetic clustering suggests that salmonella enterica serotype rubislaw is paraphyletic

• Hyun Choi (Ph.D., Advisor: Yifan Cheng) - Surface-immobilized Proteinase K and DNase I inhibit the formation of Staphylococcal biofilms via non-toxic mechanisms

• Babak Faraji Gougerdchi (Ph.D., Advisor: Yifan Cheng) - Electrochemically etched 316L stainless steel decreases salmonella Newport attachment and increases oxidative stress in attached cells

• Zane Xu (Ph.D., Advisors: Haibo Huang and Monica Ponder) - Visible Light-Responsive Antibacterial Packaging Films For Improving Food Quality and Safety

This year’s CeZAP Infectious Disease Symposium was held jointly with the Annual Meeting of the Virginia Branch of American Society for Microbiology. It was sponsored by, among others, the Fralin Life Sciences Institute and the American Society for Microbiology. The event was an excellent showcase of FST’s commitment to Virginia Tech’s land grant mission and the department’s ultimate goal of using research and education to tackle global food and health challenges and improve the lives of people in Virginia and beyond.