Project Summary
Understanding the key mechanism of step-by-step transitions of the food-pathogen L. monocytogenes within a host is significantly important for risk evaluation and reduction. This project will develop an agent-based simulator to imitate the gastro-intestinal pathway of L. monocytogenes. The biological factors such as pH variation, digestion process, stomach emptying time and pathogen factors such as survival fitness will be added to the features of the simulator. The simulator will consider the effect of food-matrix such as liquidness and fat concetration in the survival of pathogen. The effect of food intake time and randomness of pathogen distribution in the food portions will be also taken into consideration. The simulator featured by the key physiological processes will account for the pathogen survivability in the gastro-intestinal tract of human hosts.
Funded by: Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)
Team members
- Jianhong Wu, LIAM, York University, Canada
- Ali Asgary, ADERSIM, York University, Canada
- Ashrafur Rahman, Postdoctoral Fellow, LIAM, York University, Canada
- Jeff Farber, FSQA, CRIFS, Guelph University, Canada
- Daniel Munther, Cleveland State University, USA
- Aamir Fazil, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada
- Ben Smith, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada
