PAR-20-105 Laboratory Flexible Funding Model (LFFM) (U19) Chemistry Food Defense Track Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services Project Summary Principal Investigators: Christopher Waggener, Ph.D. Project Director: Shane Wyatt Project Summary The Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services (DCLS) is the public health laboratory for the Commonwealth of Virginia and offers a wide variety of laboratory testing services for state and federal agencies, local governments and other states in support of public health, environmental protection, and emergency response. DCLS provides surveillance and emergency response testing of food samples for the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) Food Safety Program by offering nearly comprehensive testing of food samples by microbiology, chemistry, and radiochemical methods. DCLS is a long-term participating partner in the FDA Cooperative Agreement Program (CAP) and is capable of providing screening for toxic compounds in foods by GC-MS, LC-MS, LC-HRMS, and ICP-MS. In addition, DCLS can perform targeted analysis to confirm the identity of adulterated compounds and quantify their presence as adulterants. DCLS proposes to continue to provide food defense activities by maintaining readiness for emergency response, participation in ongoing surveillance and national security event assignments, participation in proficiency testing, and single or multi-laboratory validations to expand FERN method capabilities. Participation by DCLS in this analytical track will ensure its capability to act as the primary response laboratory for food adulteration in the Commonwealth of Virginia and support the FERN program in large scale events.
