UI Grant & Intra-Agency Collaboration

UI Grant & Intra-Agency Collaboration. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

Oregon has figured a way to help inspect some 10-thousand licensed food establishments around the state and only 34 Oregon Department of Agriculture food inspectors to check them out. It's done through intra-agency collaboration with the ODA's weights and measures inspectors. Food Safety Program Manager Frank Barcellos says the assistance from the ODA program has been tremendously helpful.

BARCELLOS:  We are looking to make sure that these establishments are actually operating like they should when they were licensed. We are looking to make sure they have handwashing facilities in there. We are looking to see that they are taking temperatures if they have food they are offering. All of those situations that would cause concern. If the establishment if full of pests, we want to know that.

The University of Idaho is the recipient of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations initiative grant. Haiqing Sheng, a UI research scientist, will pursue an innovative global health and development research project, titled "CRISPR-Cas9 directed bacteriophage treatment of EPEC diarrhea." Disease-causing E. coli bacteria are responsible for more than 30 percent of infant diarrhea cases in South Africa, Kenya, Bangladesh, Brazil and Mexico. Sheng's project is one of more than 50 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 15 grants.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.