U of Illinois joins US effort to track resistant bacteria
FDA grant backs retail meat and seafood surveillance
13 January 2026
1 minute read
By: Raw meat and seafood can carry harmful bacteria that cause food-borne illness, and a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign research team has received a US$1 million grant from the US Food and Drug Administration to monitor antimicrobial resistance in retail food products, according to ACES News at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The project will support the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), a collaboration involving state and local health departments, the US Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers will collect poultry, meat and seafood samples twice a month from selected Illinois retail outlets and test them for pathogens including Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Vibrio and Aeromonas.
“These pathogens can cause disease, and they can transfer their antimicrobial resistance properties to other pathogens. We risk being surrounded by ‘superbugs’ which are difficult to kill by using traditional, anti-microbial drugs,” said principal investigator Pratik Banerjee, associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.
The team will use serotyping, whole-genome sequencing and molecular analysis to identify resistance patterns and help predict and mitigate emerging risks, Banerjee said.
