Nowadays, it seems rare to find someone or some entity without a podcast, and the Food and Drug Administration is no exception.

The TechTalk podcast is hosted by the FDA and focuses on cutting edge topics. Each quarter guests examine a different aspect of the New Era of Smarter Food Safety blueprint for which there are novel technological approaches and solutions.

TechTalk Podcast episode two: “Whole Genome Sequencing in the New Era of Smarter Food Safety,” a discussion on WGS and its potential to transform food safety, will go live Aug. 11. Whole Genome Sequencing is often described as providing fingerprints of specific strains of pathogens.

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is a cutting-edge technology that FDA has put to a novel and health-promoting use.  WGS reveals the complete DNA makeup of an organism, enabling the FDA to better understand variations both within and between species. This allows the FDA to differentiate between organisms with a precision that other technologies do not allow.

The podcast features top experts in the field involved in food safety and technology.

TechTalk Podcast episode two will feature Mark Moorman, director of FDA’s Office of Food Safety and Eric Brown, director of the Division of Microbiology in the Office of Regulatory Science at FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

Moorman will lead a discussion with top experts in food safety and public health on the potential of WGS to transform food safety, how the capacity for its use can be increased across all sectors of the food safety stakeholder community, and how more opportunities for its use can be made available to all laboratory communities.

The experts:

• Association of Public Health Laboratories: Shari Shea, Director of Food Safety
• Western Growers: Afreen Malik, Science Programs Director
• New York State Department of Health: William Wolfgang, Division of Infectious Diseases

In the first installment in April, experts from the Institute of Food Technologists, FMI: The Food Industry Association, and the global standards organization GS1 discussed the role they envision new technologies playing in improving traceability, and the advice they have for food producers contemplating next steps in their traceability journey.