Identifying and controlling mycotoxins in livestock and food products

With the food industry subject to increasing scrutiny, comprehensive testing solutions are required to determine the authenticity and contaminant-free status of food products and to ensure their compliance with safety regulations.

In this SelectScience® roundtable webinar series, we bring together leading experts in the fields of pesticides analysis, mycotoxin testing and food contact materials characterization to discuss the latest trends in these areas and laboratory innovations set to transform the future of food safety testing. This series consists of three panel discussions, starting on Wednesday, March 23rd.

Webinar 1: Modernizing pesticides testing

Wednesday, March 23, at 16:00 GMT / 17:00 CET / 12:00 EDT / 09:00 PDT

Webinar 2: Measuring migration from food contact materials

Thursday, April 7th, at 16:00 BST / 17:00 CEST / 11:00 EDT / 08:00 PDT

Webinar 3: Identifying and controlling mycotoxins in livestock and food products

Tuesday, April 12th at 16:00 BST / 17:00 CEST / 11:00 EDT / 08:00 PDT

Presenter: Susanne Ekroth (Chemist, National Food Agency EU)

Susanne Ekroth is an analytical chemist at the Swedish National Food Agency. She graduated from Uppsala University and has been working at the Swedish National Food Agency for 27 years as a pesticide expert. During this time, she has developed skills in advanced technology, including GC-MS/MS, LC-MS/MS and LC-HRMS and is one of the founders of the multi residue method SweEt. Besides pesticides, she also works with food contact materials and toxins in water.

In recent years, Susanne has focused on HRMS techniques and the possibility to replace the LC-triple quadrupoles with LC-MS Orbitrap and simultaneously screen for new and unwanted compounds in food matrices. This work is presented as an application note and webinar as well as in Food Safety Magazine.

Susanne is a member of the Scientific Organizing Committee for EPRW (European Pesticide Residue Workshop) and IUPAC (Pesticide Congress, Food Quality and Safety). She has given presentations about her work on the SweEt multiresidue method on several occasions, for example at the Nordic-, European- and Latin American Pesticide Residue Workshop, RAFA and Fresenius.

Climate change and adaptation have become one of the world's most important issues and have in recent years become increasingly integrated into the authorities' work. How it can affect lab work and the planning of the official controls are some of the issues that Susanne has been working on in recent years. Working with climate and vulnerability analyses and action plans is under governmental regulation, but it also enables us to be prepared for new substances and new types of food in our screening methods. This type of methodology is very familiar to the pesticide community and future adaptions should work very well. Susanne will present some of the upcoming needs due to climate change.

Presenter: Steven Lehotay (Lead Scientist, USDA-ARS)

Steven J. Lehotay is a Lead Scientist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service at the Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania. Since 1992, he has conducted scientific investigations and method development research involving improvement in the analysis of pesticides, veterinary drugs, and other contaminants in food and environmental samples. He is the co-inventor of the “quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe” (QuEChERS) sample preparation approach. He has been awarded with numerous honors, including the AOAC International Harvey W. Wiley Award, and according to the Stanford c-score metric, he resides among the top 0.19% of published analytical chemists.

Presenter: Dr. Jim Garvey (Head of Food Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Ireland)

Dr. Jim Garvey graduated from The National University of Ireland (Galway) in 1988 with a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry. After seven years in the pharmaceutical industry as a Research Chemist, he became the process development manager in a company producing high purity solvents for GC, HPLC, and MS. He joined the Pesticide Control Laboratory in 1999 and led the laboratory through many changes -- from the introduction of mass spectrometry techniques through various phases culminating in the implementation of HRMS techniques. He led the laboratory through the 2008 dioxin crisis. Since then he has overseen many phases of laboratory development and is currently managing the introduction of HRAM technology to the residues laboratory. In October 2019, he was appointed Head of Food Chemistry at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. As well as pesticides, the Food Chemistry division covers veterinary drugs, compositional analysis of dairy products, contaminants and elemental analysis. The objective of the new division is to build a centre of excellence for food chemistry within the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine.

Presenter: Jana Hajšlová (Head of the Department of Food Analysis and Nutrition, UCT Prague)

Professor Jana Hajšlová is Head of the Department of Food Chemistry and Analysis at the Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague. Since 2000, she has been Head of Accredited Laboratory (ISO 17025) focusing on the analysis of food and environmental contaminants, toxicants and biologically active compounds.

Presenter: Dr. Yelena Sapozhnikova (Research Chemist, USDA-ARS)

Dr. Yelena Sapozhnikova is a Research Chemist at the Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Wyndmoor, PA, USA. Her research focuses on the development of new methods for the residual analysis of chemical contaminants, including pesticides, environmental and emerging contaminants, food packaging chemicals using gas and liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry. Dr. Sapozhnikova has over 20 years of experience in the analysis of chemical contaminants in food and environmental samples.

Presenter: Cristina Nerín (Professor of Analytical Chemistry, University of Zaragoza)

Dr. Cristina Nerín is Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. She is the Director of the Research Group GUIA at the University of Zaragoza and was Director of the Master in Environmental Engineering program from 1990 to 2012. Dr. Nerín is an author of more than 320 scientific publications. Dr. Nerín is also Principal Investigator of more than 200 research projects and an inventor in eight international Patents related to packaging, all in commercial applications. Dr. Nerín has received six research awards, participated in more than 140 international conferences, and instructed courses in Europe, Asia and South-America. Dr. Nerín is on the organizing committee and Chair of several international symposia.

Presenter: Dwayne Shrunk (Laboratory Manger of Analytical Chemistry Services, Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (VDL) at Iowa State University)

Dwayne is an accomplished analytical chemist with over 25 years of laboratory experience both as an operator and manager. While supporting research and collaborative partnerships, he is well versed in method development and validation, QA/QC, and lab information management. VDL is recognized as national leader in protecting animal and human health, Wayne’s leadership at one of the full-service laboratories at the VDL process upwards of 100,000 cases each year and conduct more than a million tests annually. As a fully accredited facility by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, the VDL provides quality diagnostic services for animal species, including necropsy, bacteriology, serology, histopathology, virology, parasitology, molecular diagnostics, and toxicology as well as offering analytical services, where understanding the impact natural toxins contribute to the ongoing health of animals is important.

Presenter: Tim Stratton (Manager of Library Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific)

Graduate of the University of Minnesota. Started my career as an analyst in pharma working in regulated analysis, quality control, method validation, etc. for many years with Solvay Pharmaceuticals. Migrated into pharma research when I moved to Abbott Laboratories working in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics in all aspects from early high throughput screening to post market phase 4 studies. My work in research extended for almost 10 years and included working for both large and small pharma companies. My specific area of focus was structure elucidation and fragmentation interpretation and it’s still an area I really enjoy. I joined Thermo Fisher almost ten years ago working in the Pharma vertical marketing group, mainly because they promised I could play with the latest toys before they were available. Since then I’ve been involved in hardware and software testing and development as well as working directly with customers for support and to better understand their needs. The past few years I’ve transitioned to focus more on the construction of high resolution accurate mass MS/MS and MSn spectral libraries to help with identification of unknowns across all areas of research and this continues to be the main area of focus for me.