This project is developing a dual purpose food safety laboratory which combines biotechnology student training facilities with compliance free-for-service testing. A new biotechnology Associates of Science degree and certificate programs with emphasis in Food Safety Testing educates both prospective and incumbent workers. Recruiting materials and activities are prepared to target three student populations: high school, adult learners who want to change careers, and incumbent workers. High school students are being targeted with two week Summer Academies. To ensure that pre- and in-service high school teachers are up to date with existing and changing techniques and knowledge in this industry, they are invited to attend semi-annual workshops and are mentored by community college faculty. The laboratory facilities are also being used by community college faculty who are supervising students on independent research projects.
Summary: Working title—Implementation of innovative biotechnology career pathways The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is the first comprehensive overhaul of the food safety system in the United States in five decades. Designed to mirror global efforts on food safety the FSMA sets forth a set of safety codices covering food growing, ranching and catching, and processing, warehousing, and transportation. Industry implementation of this new legislation is heavily dependent on documentation and testing at multiple stages in the "farm to fork" journey of food from production to consumption. Meeting the goals requires new specialists across a spectrum of technical jobs in industries that until now were focused on culinary arts not regulatory science. In anticipation of these far-reaching changes in the regulatory environment Florida State College at Jacksonville was tasked by local food processing industry to develop and implement a technician training regime on the Associates of Science level to meet the anticipated demand for testing in the food safety arena. Launched in 2009 with an Advanced Technical Education (ATE) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Institute for Food Safety (IFS) is a first-of-its-kind program geared to provide food safety testing technicians. This NSF-funded IFS program developed and tested curriculums designed to meet the needs of companies and institutions needing full-time technician staffs at the certificate and Associates level. As part of this grant work we developed and implemented a new Florida state-wide college credit hour biotechnology certificate within the A.S. program, and we have seen success in students gaining entry-level jobs with this training. We promulgated a suite of national core skill sets to allow the new 30-hour certificate, and a previously established 19-hour Florida biotechnology manufacturing certificate, to be entry points in this new food safety workforce. We envision the 19-hour certificate as potentially ideal for an incumbent worker requiring an understanding of scientific methods, regulatory affairs, and laboratory principles of sampling handling for companies that collect samples for off-site processing. The 30-hour midpoint certificate encompasses the training of a 19-hour certificate plus a deeper understanding of chemistry, formulation and instrumentation techniques allowing the certificant job-entry as a technician collecting and processing samples in-house. In the course of this research we conducted nationwide surveys at major food and food safety conferences, developed summer programs for high school students and teachers using food safety as learning tool, developed learning objects for training at the college level using food as a medium for protein, nucleic acids and xenobiotic studies, and developed a unique industry academic/industry collaboration termed a Contract Testing Organization or CTO. Intellectual merit for our project stems from the cross-pollinating of established biotechnology education adapted to a novel area, food testing, a new field for associate-level and certificate training. In developing the IFS we created a unique degree path and developed early career entry-points The IFS is providing a new kind of workforce needed in an industry undergoing a historical revolution and modernization. By harnessing existing biotechnology training this new workforce can be developed via established academic institutions, also an innovation for the food safety industry. During this research project our industry partners suggested a second area for associates-level training in instrumentation analysis. Mass Spectrometry has moved from a research technique to a monitoring tool over the past half-decade and is now the method of choice in performing food analyses. Working with our partners we developed a novel course around preparation of samples and basic operation of Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry to enable biotechnology training both in food testing and also for students seeking careers in academic pursuits, such as neuroscience and cancer biology. The broader impacts of this work include: providing a path to a new national workforce needed to implement legislative changes in response to 21st century food hazards; provide existing incumbent workers and new entry-level technicans needed new skills in regulatory compliance, new techniques in sample handling and a new perspective in science-based principles of food safety testing; exposing high school students to new career choices in food safety; providing high school science teachers with authentic hands-on working in a biotechnology laboratory; establishing a first-of-its-kind academic and commercial testing laboratory to be a model for other collaborations; and beta-testing a new role for biotechnology associates-level trainees in advanced scientific instrumentation.
