New interventions against human norovirus: progress, opportunities, and challenges
The Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry invites you to a seminar by Dr. Jianrong Li, Ohio State University.
Viruses are responsible for the majority of foodborne illnesses. The most common foodborne viruses include human norovirus, rotavirus, hepatitis A virus, and hepatitis E virus. Worldwide, human norovirus accounts for more than 95% of nonbacterial gastroenteritis outbreaks. In Canada, human norovirus causes 65% of foodborne illnesses, and 7,350 hospitalizations annually. High-risk foods for norovirus contamination include fresh produce, seafood, and ready-to-eat foods. This seminar will discuss the attachment, internalization, and dissemination of norovirus in the high-risk foods, and discuss novel interventions and non-thermal processing technologies to remove, mitigate, and inactivate norovirus in high-risk foods with a goal of enhancing food safety and public health.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Dr. Jianrong Li received DVM and PhD in 2002 from Zhejiang University, P. R. China. From 2002-2008, he received post-doctoral training in molecular virology at University of Massachusetts Medical School and Harvard Medical School in the United States. In 2008, he started as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at The Ohio State University (OSU). In 2013, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Food Science and Technology, and he moved to Department of Veterinary Biosciences at the same university. In 2017, he was promoted to full Professor at OSU. Since he started as a faculty member at OSU in 2008, he has built a strong research program on food safety, foodborne viruses, and respiratory viruses. His laboratory has been continuously funded by US federal grants including National Institutes of Health (NIH) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In total, he has won over $15.0 million research grants as a PI and over $45.0 million as a co-PI. He has published more than 85 publications in leading virology, microbiology, and food safety journals including Nature Microbiology, Nature Communications, PNAS, mBio, Journal of Virology, and Applied Environmental Microbiology. His work has led to 7 issued patents and 12 invention disclosures. He won several awards including Final List of Innovator of Year Award, Zoetis Award for Research Excellence, Charles C. Capen Teaching Excellence Award, and Distinguished Undergraduate Advisor at OSU. He has served as an editor for International Journal of Food Microbiology, a member of editorial broad for Applied Environmental Microbiology.
Dr Li is a candidate for the position of Ian & Jayne Munro Chair in Food Safety