SFAM conference - day three

Name: Samantha Price

Location: Clontarf Castle, Dublin, Ireland

Date: 6^thJuly 2011

Event: SfAM Summer Conference 2011 (Food microbiology)

The final full day of the conference continued from yesterday with a talk on the ‘Epidemiology of foodborne disease' with Hilde Kruse (WHO) talking once again, this time about the threat of antibiotic resistance and the impact along the food chain.

The third session was on ‘Microbiological risk assessment' and began with Sarah Cahill (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) who spoke on recent global risk assessments. Maarten Nauta (DTU Food) talked about developments with a Campylobacter risk assessment and this presentation used a lot of what we had learnt from the ‘risk assessment workshop' on the first day.

After tea and coffee delegates were free to look around posters, some of which were by some student members of SfAM. It was nice to see such an array of different and interesting posters before a buffet style lunch.

After lunch Pirkko Tuominen (Finish FSA) discussed the risk assessments of Salmonella in Finland with Phil Voysey (Campden BRI) finishing off the session with a talk about Listeria in butter. It was interesting to know that at no matter what temperature you store butter, the growth of Listeria remains the same.

Student presentations were then done with a variety of topics covered by four student members. The presentations were delivered excellently and it was nice to see a student essence in the conference.

The final lectures of the day were the SfAM award lectures with Clare Taylor (Edinburgh Napier University) wining the ‘New Lecturer Research Grant' with a discussion on metal transport in bacterial infections. Brian Jones (University of Brighton) won the W H Pierce prize and gave an interesting talk on exploring the gut metagenome.

The day ended with Student members being able to attend the PECS committee meeting in order to get feedback and input on future events for student members - which was very useful.

After a long day delegates enjoyed a tour of the Jameson's distillery, whiskey tasting and the conference dinner. After the dinner, the winner of the SfAM Communications Award gave an entertaining speech about her experiences in science communication and public engagement. Following this, Irish music and dancing provided great entertainment and surely gave everyone a great last night in Dublin.