UGA Center for Food Safety Webinar Series      

Microbial Ecology and Evolution: Insights into Food Safety and Public Health

Guest speaker: Dr. Jingqiu Liao, Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech

Hosted by Dr. Xiangyu Deng, Associate Professor

Abstract: Our environment sustains enormous microbes, including foodborne pathogens. Understanding their ecology and evolution in the context of the environment can inform the assessment of the risk of foodborne pathogen transmission and the development of tools for the investigation and control of foodborne outbreaks. Despite the importance, we lack proper translation of the mechanistic knowledge of the ecology and evolution of foodborne pathogens into the food safety and public health area. In this talk, I will discuss how we use a microbial ecology and evolution framework to address food safety concerns caused by three bacterial taxa – Listeria, Salmonella, and Escherichia coli. Specifically, I will talk about our large-scale environmental surveillance of Listeria across the entire US and its potential transmission to food-associated environments, genetic markers that may be used for source-tracking antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella, and the influence of watershed landscape on the transmission of E. coli to agricultural soils.

Liao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. Dr. Liao received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from Cornell University and was an exchange Ph.D. student at MIT, studying the ecology and evolution of foodborne and environmental-transmitted pathogens. She subsequently trained as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center where she investigated the role of microbiomes in human health. Dr. Liao’s work has been published in more than 30 scientific articles in journals such as Nature Microbiology, Science, Environmental Microbiology, and Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The Liao Environmental and Public Health Microbiology Lab (LEAPH) that Dr. Liao is leading at Virginia Tech investigate how microbiomes, foodborne pathogens, and antimicrobial-resistant microbes interact with natural and food-associated environments. The LEAPH aims to advance a mechanistic and predictive understanding of microbial diversity and ecosystem functioning and to deliver actionable solutions to help improve sustainability, food safety, and public health.