On Decemper 16, Dr. Vivian Chi-hua Wu, the associate professor at the University of Maine visited Bor Luh Food Safety Research Center, and gave a wonderful presentation titled of “Biotechnology in Microbial Food Safety”.
Dr. Vivian Chi-hua Wu was born and brought up in Taiwan. She studied in the Kansas State University from 1997 and obtained her PhD in Food Science in 2002. She was then hired by the University of Maine in 2003, and at present she is an associate professor at the department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.
In the presentation, Dr. Vivian Chi-hua Wu shared her research work and the achievement with the audience. Under her supervisory, her research team developed a “same day protocols” for detection of Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella spp. in food by a combination of immuno-capture-circulating system and rapid colorimetric assay or polymerase chain reaction. By this protocol, microbial sample can be prepared, enriched and detected within 5.25 hours, which is a lead technology in the Microbial Rapid Detection area. Dr. Wu said, at present, in China researchers were more interested in developing methods of rapid microbial detection. While in the United States, researchers paid more efforts on the controlling of foodborne pathogens. So that in the other study, she tried to find out functional ingredients from natural fruit or plant for destroying or prohibiting some microbial in food, which can be applied as the institute of the synthesized bacteriostat. She has discovered that adding cranberry extract to ground beef deliberately contaminated with E. coli significantly reduced the amount of bacteria after five days compared with a control sample. This study was widely reported by the Wall Street Journal, CNN and other media.
As a Chinese researcher, Dr. Vivian Chi-hua Wu paid much attention on and devoted to the development of food safety research and food industry in China Mainland and Taiwan. She has been appointed as the Invited Professor at Shanghai Ocean University and the Chairman of China-USA Food Safety and Microbial Rapid Detection Training Course.
[author] Dr. Jin Yue, SJTU Bor S. Luh Food Safety Research Center