Prof. Lawrence Goodridge, a professor of food safety in U of G’s Department of Food Science, spoke with CBC Nova Scotia about how whole genome sequencing is improving food safety.

Goodridge explained that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been using genome sequencing to track pathogens for several years and the findings from that technology have already changed the way food is processed in Canada.

He belongs to the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety and holds the Leung Family Professorship in Food Safety.

He studies ways to integrate genomics to detect food- and water-borne bacterial pathogens such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria. He is currently pursuing interdisciplinary research on food-borne pathogens, antibiotic resistance and food fraud.