Thank you to everyone who came out last month for the annual WestFest Event at The Ohio State University’s West Campus! Community members, students, children and parents, teachers, etc., we appreciate you all. Science and sustainability education matter, as is being able to translate such knowledge into evidence-based policies and practices, which is what the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention is committed to doing. Through outreach and advocacy, we are keeping Ohio healthy and safe!
As a recap:
We brought you all Biofilm Slime, inspired by our international research project, TARTARE in Ethiopia. TARTARE’s goal is to reduce sickness and death from foodborne diseases. Our work focuses on major food safety pathogens in raw beef and dairy products in Ethiopia including Salmonella and Campylobacter. It is the research findings from projects such as TARTARE, that we are sharing with Ohio Communities.
So, what is biofilm again?
- Bi·o·film - a clear, slimy, glue-like substance that forms when certain types of microorganisms such as bacteria stick to a moist surface. By secreting this substance the bacteria are able to be protected, hold onto the surface they are sticking to, and persist on that surface.
For this reason, it is important to properly clean all your kitchen surfaces, immediately before and after preparing food. To ensure that any harmful bacteria found in food, that can contribute to human illness, don’t have the chance to produce this resistant and protective biofilm (a matrix of sorts). The formation of biofilm can keep the harmful bacteria from easily being removed through normal cleaning and disinfection measures.
We hope you took a lot away from WestFest 2022 at OSU and this short debrief. But most importantly, we hope that you can apply these lessons to your daily life! See you all next year ~