Laboratory Science

The Laboratory Science work group supports the Partnership for Food Protections (PFP) goal of mutual reliance for a safer food supply. Comprised of federal, state and association partners, the work group creates resources that build confidence among stakeholders in the integrity and scientific validity of laboratory analytical data and facilitate acceptance of laboratory analytical data by regulatory agencies.

The work group:

• Promotes the use of national laboratory best practices
• Supports efforts to achieve laboratory accreditation to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard
• Supports development of a laboratory science data system for sharing results between strategic partners

Covid Lessons Learned
The PFP Laboratory Science Workgroup formed a subgroup to explore the various experiences human and animal food (HAF) regulatory laboratories encountered during the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. These experiences were not necessarily unique to these laboratories, as informal conversations with other laboratory groups found that many laboratories experienced similar situations. While we may never again experience a pandemic like COVID-19, the subgroup felt it prudent to capture the challenges laboratories faced during this pandemic and, more importantly, solutions devised to overcome these challenges.

Laboratory Best Practices Manual
Documenting the quality of both sampling and analysis is essential to ensure the defensibility of laboratory generated data. To facilitate data acceptance, the work group identified essential elements critical to the quality of regulatory data. The Human and Animal Food Testing Laboratories Best Practices Manual (LBPM) provides a set of tools, definitions, and references that laboratories can use to improve their operations.

Current Major Laboratory Initiatives
The Current Major Laboratory Initiatives (CMLI) captures information related to current national integration programs that contain a laboratory component. The work group created the CMLI to summarize current integration efforts related to networks and capacity building, laboratory quality management systems, and program-specific funding. Food safety professionals can use the CMLI as guidance to improve coordination and cooperation among strategic partners and avoid duplicative efforts. Laboratories can use the document to identify new funding sources, as well as discover opportunities for collaboration among other laboratories or program partners.

Compliance Checklist
The Human & Animal Food Regulatory Compliance Review Checklist is designed to assist a human and animal food testing organization in preparing a data package intended for review by a compliance officer for possible regulatory action. In addition, this checklist is structured to aid compliance officers in the review of data packages.  Familiarity with the elements of this checklist will assist regulatory management, inspection and laboratory groups in planning their sample collections and analyses to assure they can provide essential regulatory information. The checklist can also serve as a data package index, to assure that all necessary information is included and easily located. A Word Version of the checklist is also available.

The Laboratory Science work group is collaborating with the PFP Information Technology (IT) work group to review and enhance the National Food Safety Data Exchange (NFSDX), a PFP initiative that contributes to the development of the Integrated Food Safety System (IFSS) by enabling electronic sharing of food safety information and data between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), states, local health departments, and various regulatory partners.