| |
|
| |
 |
| |
| |
Important Dates |
 |
|
 |
|
|
| |
March 2012
Call for Abstracts Opens
Thursday 13 September 2012
Call for Abstracts Closes
Sunday 20 January 2013
Early Bird Registration Closes
Sunday 17 March – Friday 22 March 2013
ICMSS 2013 Conference |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
Program & Speakers
Conference Program
To view conference program please click here
* This program is subject to change at the discretion of the conference organisers.
To view session descriptions please click here
Workshops
Demonstration of the Receptor Binding Assay for Paralytic Shellfish Toxins (PST)
Date: Friday March 22, 2013
Location: University of Technology Sydney, Laboratory 226
Hosted by: Frances M. Van Dolah, NOAA National Ocean Service, Charleston, SC, USA and Aileen DeLeon, Philippine Nuclear Research Institute, Manila, Philippines
This workshop is sponsored by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency
The receptor binding assay (RBA) for PST has recently been accepted by the AOAC as an official method of analysis (OMA 2011.27) and offers an excellent alternative to live animal testing. Like the mouse bioassay, the RBA provides a single integrated toxic potency value that reflects activity of all PSTs that pose a health risk to humans. The basis of the RBA is the interaction between the PST and their pharmacological target, the voltage gated sodium channel. Specifically, PST present in shellfish extracts compete with radiolabeled saxitoxin (3H STX) for binding to the sodium channel, resulting in a measurable decrease in bound radioactivity. The assay is formatted in a 96-well plate for high throughput and ease of handling. Run in quantitative mode, seven shellfish extracts are analyzed per microplate, in triplicate at three dilutions covering toxicity ranges of approximately 35 to 6000g STX diHCl equiv./kg. In a larger scale monitoring or event response setting, multiple plates can be set up simultaneously, such that six assay plates can easily be accommodated per day by a single analyst, for a throughput of 42 samples per day. The assay can also be used in screening mode at a single dilution, designed to detect samples at or above the regulatory limit, to eliminate the need for full quantitative analysis of negative samples. Run in quantitative mode the cost per sample is $US 13.60; in screening mode $US 4.10.
The workshop will demonstrate the instrumentation, set-up, and performance of the assay on a variety of shellfish samples, as well as the analysis and quality control of the data. Please register your interest in attending this workshop by emailing the conference secretariat: icmssreg@iceaustralia.com. Note, space is limited and will be allocated on a ‘first in first served’ basis.
The workshop is being held at Laboratory 226, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway. This is a short walk from the conference venue (http://www.uts.edu.au/).
Dye Tracing Study
Date: Friday March 22, 2013
Cost: $50.00 per person, transport and lunch included
Hosted by: NSW Food Authority and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The dye tracing workshop will be held on Friday 22nd of March, and will be facilitated by FDA engineers with expertise in water modeling. The workshop will involve:
- Adding Rhodamine WT dye into Brisbane Water, Gosford
- (4 hour injection)
- Getting out on a boat, taking readings in order to map out dispersion patterns and flow. Analysis of results and debrief at the end of the field component.
This study simulates a sewage discharge and provides valuable information on the affects to the oyster leases with the area. With this information closures can be limited to the affected area, ensuring that public health is protected and industry impact minimized.
Please register your interest in attending this workshop by emailing the conference secretariat: icmssreg@iceaustralia.com. Please note: Space is limited and will be allocated on a ‘first in first served’ basis. Book now to avoid disappointment!
Session 14: Recent Paralytic Shellfish Toxin (PST) event in Tasmania
During October 2012 Tasmania experienced an unprecedented algal bloom on the east coast, covering more than 200km of coastline. The causative organism has been identified as a strain of A. tamarense Group IV, previously unknown in Tasmania.
Although the maximum cell numbers observed were relatively low (up to 8 800 cells L-1), toxicity of over 10 mg PST kg-1 shellfish was recorded in one area. The event sparked a national and international recall of mussels, and resulted in harvest closures of commercial and recreational bivalve growing areas. However, no human illnesses related to this event were confirmed.
Accumulation of PST was observed in mussels, oysters, clams, and scallops and in the viscera of southern rock lobster. Abalone, periwinkles, sea-urchins, finfish and squid were also tested for PST’s in response to the bloom and public concern, but were shown not to have accumulated the toxins.
The total economic cost to the affected fisheries from the event is estimated to be around $12 million dollars.
Session 14 at the upcoming ICMSS will include a lively discussion around the event in Tasmania, and other similar events world-wide. The discussion will include the conditions leading up to the event, biotoxin history in Tasmania, the genetics and toxicology of the species, management during the event and the economic impacts. Presenters will include researchers (led by Dr Gustaaf Hallegraeff, Dr Shauna Murray, and Dr Chris Bolch), regulators (Alison Turnbull – Manager TSQAP), and industry (Phil Lamb, Managing Director of Spring Bay Seafoods, the largest mussel producer in Australia).
Invited Speakers |
| |
 Dr. William Burkhardt
Presentation Title: Science and Risk-driven Approaches for Control of Norovirus in Molluscan Shellfish
Dr. Burkhardt is the Chief of FDA's Microbial Hazards Science Branch located at Dauphin Island, AL and is a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service.
He is responsible for coordinating and oversight to the majority of FDA's microbiological research investigating the occurrence and distribution of autochthonous (Vibrios) and anthropogenic (fecally derived) contaminants in molluscan shellfish.
He has over 27 years of experience investigating microbial contaminants in estuarine waters and its impact on the sanitary quality of shellfish harvested from them. These investigations have provided scientific support for FDA policies associated with molluscan shellfish harvest to improve food safety.
He is the co-inventor of a quantitative real-time assay for NoV that is licensed by a major biotech company. Dr. Burkhardt serves as an agency subject matter expert for enteric viral pathogens in FDA regulated foods.
Lastly, he has co-authored two FDA risk profiles (NoV and HAV) and serves as a technical expert to the joint US/Canadian NoV risk assessment for molluscan shellfish.
|
| |
 Ian Falconer
Presentation Title: Cyanobacterial toxin accumulation in shellfish, finfish and crustaceans, guidelines for consumer safety
Ian Falconer came into the field of cyanobacterial toxins as a result of blue-green algal contamination of a drinking water supply that he showed to be associated with liver damage in a town population. With frequent water blooms of toxic cyanobacteria in Australia he explored the potential risk from eating shellfish, crustaceans and finfish obtained from contaminated waters, and published the first account of hepatotoxic Nodularia present in the gut of estuarine mussels.
His work has extended into the mechanisms of cyanobacterial toxicity and the risk assessment for these toxins in drinking water, recreational exposure and in food. His publications include 'Algal Toxins in Seafood and Drinking water' Ed., Academic Press 1993 and 'Cyanobacterial Toxins in Drinking Water Supplies' CRC Press 2005.
|
| |
 John Foord
Presentation Title: Risk & Mitigation of Food Safety Risks Associated with Abalone & Lobster
John has been responsible for developing and managing the South African Molluscan Shellfish Monitoring and Control Programme for the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for six years.
His main responsibilities are to ensure that appropriate systems and technology are developed and employed to ensure that the required food safety standards of all aquacultured marine molluscan shellfish produced in South Africa are met.
With three years of experience as an abalone farm manager he has an appreciation of the practical risks associated with abalone in particular, both in terms of mitigating risks on the farm and ensuring food safety of the final product to meet regulatory and customer demands.
With the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries he has registered for a PhD to determine the cause of Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning in Haliotis midae in the South African context.
|
| |
 Dr Anamarija Frankić
Presentation Title: Water: Nature's Solutions and How Do We Fit In?
Dr. Anamarija Frankić is a director of the Green Boston Harbor (GBH), a faculty at UMass Boston, and an adjunct professor at the Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography, Split, Croatia.
She is a Biomimicry Institute Fellow since 2010; and a member of advisory council at AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education). Her educational background in biology, ecology, limnology and marine science, guided her interdisciplinary work in coastal and watershed ecosystem management and restoration, nationally and internationally.
In 2008, Anamarija and her students established the Green Boston Harbor Project (GBH) to discover how urban harbors can become healthy, wealthy and sustainable, right here and now? She initiated and established 'living labs' as part of the applied science education where students and communities are able to 'learn and teach by doing' biomimicry, applying nature's solutions for sustainable future.
Although it is a huge challenge to restore coastal ecosystems, she believes that we do have the knowledge, science and technology to live harmoniously within natural systems, by following her own premise that 'the environment sets the limits for sustainable development'. GBH is part of the Center for Governance and Sustainability www.umb.edu/cgs.
|
| |
 Dr Soizick Le Guyader
Presentation Title: Shellfish and Norovirus: What Do We Know?
In collaboration with her colleagues from the Microbiology laboratory at Ifremer, S. Le Guyader is working on human enteric virus detection in the coastal environment. Beside method development for viral detection and quantitation, the main research objectives are to understand how shellfish get contaminated, including sewage depuration efficiency, field study analysis, and outbreak investigations.
Dr Le Guyader's research projects mainly focus on norovirus, which is the main pathogen implicated in shellfish related outbreaks worldwide.
Importantly, in recent years Dr Le Guyader's team has demonstrated that oysters are able to actively select some norovirus strains, via specific ligands detected in digestive tissues. These findings explain the persistence of these viruses, depuration failure, and provide some intriguing insights into outbreak data.
|
| |
 Philipp Hess
Presentation Title: Dissolved Azaspiracids are Absorbed and Metabolized by Blue Mussels (Mytilus Edulis)
Researcher interested in the detection, chemistry, ecological role and impact of phycotoxins on marine environment and human health. After studies of chemistry at EHICS Strasbourg (FR), he completed his PhD in 1998 on organic contaminants in the marine environment (UK). Subsequently, he studied algal toxins, initially focussing on domoic acid and saxitoxins. In 2001, he helped implement chemical testing for lipophilic toxins in parallel to mouse bioassays to combat azaspiracid shellfish poisoning (IE).
|
| |
 Prof Anna Gago Martinez
Presentation Title: Analytical Evaluation of Emerging Toxins Present in Shellfish and Phytoplankton from Certain Areas of the Spanish and Portuguese Coasts
Professor Gago Martinez is responsible for the Research Group of Chromatographic and related techniques applied to the analysis of natural and antropogenic contaminants in food and environment at Anakytical Chemistry and Food Department of the University of Vigo, Spain.
Professor Gago Martinez is also supervisor of 14 Ph.D projects and 15 Masters in research related with the method development for the control of natural and antropoghenic contaminants in the environment and food as well as in recent projects in the Proteomics field.
|
| |
 Paul McNabb
Presentation Title: LCMS! What is it good for...
Paul has 20 years of experience in most areas of analytical testing and a wide knowledge of many technical aspects of food production. He has a special interest in Natural Toxins, publishing over 50 scientific papers, books and reports. Paul is one of New Zealand's most experienced LC-MS users and has been instrumental in establishing Cawthron, New Zealand, as a world leading provider of testing services.
|
| |
 Prof Tanya Monro
Presentation Title: TBC
Professor Monro is an ARC Federation Fellow, Director of the Institute for Photonics & Advanced Sensing (IPAS) and the Director of the Centre of Expertise in Photonics within the School of Chemistry & Physics (CoEP) at the University of Adelaide.
Professor Monro came to the University of Adelaide in early 2005 as the inaugural Chair of Photonics. From 1998 - 2004 Tanya worked within the ORC at the University of Southampton in the UK. Tanya Monro has published over 400 papers in journals and refereed conference proceedings.
The vision of IPAS is to bring together researchers in physics, chemistry and biology to pursue a transdisciplinary approach to science for applications in defence, preventative health, environmental monitoring and food and wine.
In late 2008, IPAS was awarded $29M from the Australian Federal Government HEEF (EIF) scheme towards the construction of a new building, Illumin8, to serve as the IPAS HQ on the University of Adelaide's North Terrace Campus. This project also has support from the South Australian State Government and DSTO.
The CoEP focuses on developing new classes of micro and nanostructured optical fibres for defence, sensing, nonlinear optics and fibre lasers.
Tanya is a member of the South Australian Premier's Science & Research Council, and regularly serves on a range of committees for the Australian Research Counil (ARC) and other key national bodies in the area of science policy and the evaluation of science. She recently served as part of a consultation panel for the recently released Defence White Paper (2009).
|
| |
 Dr Shauna Murrary
Presentation Title: Molecular genetic detection of saxitoxin and Alexandrium species in marine environmental samples
Shauna Murray is a researcher at the Sydney Institute of Marine Sciences in the evolution and molecular ecology of phytoplankton, especially harmful algal bloom forming species.
She received her PhD in 2003 from the University of Sydney on the phylogenetics of dinoflagellates, and has worked at the University of Tokyo, Japan, and at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Her main research projects are on the development of molecular genetic methods for monitoring for harmful algal bloom species and their toxins, the evolution of harmful algal toxins and dinoflagellates, and the biotic and abiotic factors affecting the uptake of harmful algal toxins by bivalves.
|
| |
 Dr Angelo DePaola
Presentation Title: Networking Vibrio Data for Assessing and Managing Risk
Dr. Angelo DePaola began his professional career with FDA in 1978 and has worked at the Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory at Dauphin Island, Alabama, since 1979.
He established a research program at Dauphin Island to investigate the ecology, growth, survival and methodology for Vibrio spp. associate with foodborne illnesses that has resulted in 95 peer reviewed articles, 130 abstracts and 6 book chapters. He has received numerous awards from FDA and AOAC for his scientific contributions including the 2001 CFSAN award for Excellence in Analytical Science.
The methods he has developed have been adopted by the FDA (Bacteriological Analytical Manual), AOAC and APHA. He has led the Agency in development of nonisotopic DNA probes and real-time PCR assays for detection of foodborne pathogens.
He is the co-inventor of a novel internal amplification control for PCR that has been licensed by a major biotech company. He is currently spearheading an effort to produce a panel of globally diverse vibrio strains that will be freely available to any qualified laboratory in the world that conducts research on vibrios.
|
| |
 Dr. Douglas Powell
Presentation Title: Engaging consumers and retailers: evidence-based marketing of food and environment safety
Dr. Douglas Powell is a professor of food safety at Kansas State University who resides in Brisbane. He received a PhD in food science from the University of Guelph in 1996.
Powell has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and a book, and has written over 6,000 entries for barfblog.com since 2006. He teaches courses in food safety risk analysis, policy, communications and culture, and works with a lot of graduate students.
A native of Brantford, Ontario (that's in Canada), Doug is passionate about food, has five daughters, and used to be an OK goaltender in pickup hockey. One of his next challenges is to create a vibrant girls ice hockey association in Australia.
|
| |
 Assoc Prof Anthony Richardson
Presentation Title: Marine Plankton and Climate Change
Associate Professor Anthony J. Richardson is recognised internationally for significant contributions in the fields of climate impacts on marine species, plankton dynamics and fish ecology. Anthony completed an Honours degree in Zoology from the University of Queensland, and a PhD at the University of Cape Town in 1998.
In 2002 he moved to the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation of Ocean Science in Plymouth (UK) working with continuous plankton recorders, and since 2005 he holds a joint appointment in Mathematics at the University of Queensland and as research scientist at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research. The Richardson lab focuses on understanding the effects of environmental variability on marine systems as a window to predicting impacts of climate change.
Recent work has shown that climate change is already impacting Australian coral reefs, plankton communities, kelp forests and fish assemblages. Anticipating future problems associated with marine climate change necessitates a range of approaches.
|
| |
 Joe Silke
Presentation Title: Bivalve Biotoxins Monitoring, an integrated approach
Joe Silke oversees the shellfish safety programmes within the Marine Environment and Food Safety Services of the Irish Marine Institute. This unit of the MI is responsible for monitoring phytoplankton, biotoxins and shellfish microbiology.
His background is in the aquaculture industry where he worked in oyster hatcheries and on-growing facilities, mussel farming and lobster production in Ireland through the 1980s.
Following this he moved into research activities including phytoplankton and oceanography, and has worked in the field of shellfish safety and harmful algal bloom research for the past 22 years.
|
| |
 Helen Smale
Presentation Title: Quality Programmes As A Commercial Opportunity
Helen joined the aquaculture industry in 1996 from a background in health science and dairy industry quality assurance. She heads the Marlborough Shellfish Quality Programme, the organisation that manages the water quality programmes on behalf of industry in collaboration with the regulatory authorities in the top of the South Island of New Zealand. She also fulfils a number of national roles.
In addition to her water quality work Helen is a director and part time consultant at Forté Management business development consultancy. Forté specialises in innovation management with a particular emphasis on the conversion of innovations into successful commercial outcomes.
|
| |
A full program will be available in the near future.
Click here for more background on the Field Trip Destination - The Hawkesbury Estuary
Click here for information on the Hawkesbury Addendun
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
Conference Organisers
C/- International Conferences & Events P/L
1/12 Gladstone Place
South Melbourne, VIC, 3502, Australia |
T: +61 3 9681 6288
F: +61 3 9681 6653
icmss2013@iceaustralia.com |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
