Animal production, animal health and food safety: Gaps and challenges in the chilean industry.

This paper summarizes the gaps and challenges related to animal production, health, and food safety as discussed by a panel at the 1st International Symposium of Food Safety (ISFS) in Santiago, Chile, in December 2016. Participating representatives of academia, industry, and government and statements from the audience confirmed that food safety is essential for increasing food security. First, panelists identified the need for a science-based regulatory framework to implement effective regulations. Second, they highlighted the importance of a risk analysis framework to quantify the risk of the potential for antimicrobial resistance associated with the use of antimicrobials, and the need of studies to evaluate foodborne prevention/control strategies. Third, the challenges of filling the gaps between industry and academia were addressed, including examples of successful collaboration, opportunities, and weakness identified by industry. Finally, challenges in animal food production included issues related to changing consumer preferences, animal welfare, the use of antimicrobials, and sustainable animal production. The symposium provided a regional platform to share experiences from the implementation of methods and approaches for food safety. The roundtable successfully explored the future science and technology challenges that are of strategic importance for Chile and the region in animal health and food safety.

Isolation of viable porcine islets by selective osmotic shock without enzymatic digestion.

Islet transplantation is a potential cure for type 1 diabetes, but clinical results have been disappointing. Currently, islet isolation is by enzymatic digestion of the pancreas which has significant pitfalls: warm ischemia exposure, collagenase-induced damage to the islet mass and viability, poor reproducibility, high cost, a relatively low number of islets obtained per whole pancreas, and selection of islets for collagenase resistance rather than for glucose responsiveness. In the present study we performed a series of experiments in a porcine model to demonstrate the feasibility of a new isolation method based on selective osmotic shock (SOS) using very high glucose solutions, doubling or tripling physiological osmotic strength. The SOS method can be carried out at room temperature or in the cold eliminating warm ischemia time which damages the islets. The SOS method does not depend on the texture of the pancreas so all pancreases can be processed identically and the process can be fully automated. The SOS method isolates all the islets of the pancreas regardless of size and shape allowing a greater number of islets to be harvested. The SOS method avoids exposure to toxins in collagenase solutions, is inexpensive and selects for islets with high concentrations of Glut 2 transporters, representing the best glucose responding islets. The SOS method showed a comparable recovery of islets from young pig pancreas and the islets showed improved viability. We conclude that the selective osmotic shock (SOS) method of separating islets from the pancreatic tissue is superior to the collagenase method.