Two EU Integrated Projects with common themes will make presentations to participants during BIOTRACER's 2nd General Meeting being held in Dublin, Ireland, 2-4 July 2008. Dr. Geraldine Duffy will present the Prosafebeef IP and Dr. Raffaello Prugger will present the Traceback IP.

Dr. Geraldine Duffy is Head of the Food Safety Department at Ashtown Food Research Centre, Teagasc, Dublin. Her research focuses on understanding the behaviour and virulence of microbial pathogens, in particular verocytotoxigenic E. coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter along the farm to fork chain. This research is exploited to develop food safety management systems including quantitative risk assessment models and novel interventions for control of known and emergent food-borne pathogens. She has published widely in the field of microbial food safety with over 80 peer reviewed publications including books and book chapters. She is currently involved in the coordination of two EU Framework VI projects, Prosafebeef and Pathogenic E. coli Network. She is a member of a number of professional committees including the microbiological sub-committee of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and serves as a food safety expert for European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), W.H.O / FAO, and I.L.S.I. (International Life Science Institute).

Dr. Raffaello Prugger is the director of TCA and chief of the coordination group of Traceback. He is also responsible for the operability of the project, monitoring and evaluating the execution of the research activities within the time and resources given. Traceback is the acronym for "Integrated system for a reliable traceability of food supply chains", an Integrated project of the European Union Sixth Framework Programme of Scientific and Technological Research , Priority 5 "Food Quality and Safety".

The main objective of the Traceback project is to develop a well functioning generic system for traceability and information handling within food chains. Traceback is a project within the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme involving 28 partners from 11 countries. The partners range from research institutes and universities, computer and consultancy firms, to representatives from the food industry. The project deals with traceability along entire food chains, and is divided into a number of different work packages covering different aspects of traceability.