The Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH) will present the sixth installment of its annual High-Throughput Sequencing (HTS) Symposium, titled “Food Safety, HTS, Big Data, and Data Sharing: Perspectives from Food Industry, Governmental Agencies, Biotech Companies, and Academia,” at the Chicago Marriott Southwest at Burr Ridge, 1200 Burr Ridge Parkway, on May 31–June 1, 2023 from 1–4:50 p.m.

Register here.

Synopsis: In the symposium, our prominent guest speakers from biotech enterprises, academia, government agencies, food industry, laboratory and consulting/analytical companies will present and discuss the latest updates on HTS. This will include its many applications along with the benefits and challenges of implementing and using HTS in their organizations. Our colleagues of the FDA, CDC and USDA FSIS will provide insight into how the utilization and implementation of HTS in their organizations, for nearly a decade, have improved food safety and human health in the United States and beyond. In addition, the attendees and participants in this meeting will learn about and share their knowledge and experience with the special topic of this year’s symposium, “big data.” We will explore what big data is, what its values are, how it is produced, collected, stored, maintained, and integrated with the data from other sources, and how it is analyzed and visualized in order to lead us to the best course of action. Our panel of experts—one from the agencies and the other from the food industry—will discuss the important issue of data sharing, its necessity and importance, and the real and perceived obstacles that hinder it.

The attendees will have the opportunity to meet with and hear from prominent scientists affiliated with FDA, CDC, FSIS USDA, academia, food industry, consulting and analytical companies, and biotech enterprises. The topics include the news and views on HTS and food safety, the latest HTS inventions, innovations, products and research, the benefits, opportunities, obstacles and challenges of the use and implementation of HTS (especially by the agencies and the industry). The special topic for this year’s symposium is “big data,” with a focus on the new, safe, and secure data sharing schemes that pave the way for creating an integrated database that helps generate the best predictive and modeling tools to enhance our food safety systems. Two panels of experts, one from the federal agencies, and the other from the industry and academia, will discuss the important issue of data sharing, its necessity and importance, along with the real and perceived obstacles that hinder it. The attendees will have the opportunity to network with this outstanding group of scientists and pose their questions to the panels and participate in their discussions.