ABOUT COMBASE

The ComBase Initiative is a collaboration among the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Institute of Food Research (IFR) from the United Kingdom; the USDA Agricultural Research Service and its Eastern Regional Research Center from the United States; and the University of Tasmania Food Safety Centre (FSC) in Australia. These Partners and Associate Members form the ComBase Consortium that aims to improve efficiency in locating specific microbiological information, provide a more rapid means to compare data from different laboratories, and to reduce unnecessary redundancy in conducting microbiological studies.

The ComBase Consortium members

The ComBase website is produced and hosted by IFR. The The Internet version of the ComBase Browser, developed by ERRC, ARS, USDA, carries out queries for records that match a number of food environmental factors, such as temperature, pH, and water activity. Anyone interested in the microbial safety and quality of foods can explore ComBase and its associated tools at no cost. Using an Internet interface, the user identifies criteria that they are interested in for a food microbiology scenario(s). This includes identifying a type or species of organism, a type or class of food, pH, temperature, water activity (or NaCl concentration), and specific food conditions. Alternatively, ComBase customers may be interested in retrieving data donated by a specific source (publication, organisation or researcher).

The information in ComBase is referred to as "quantitative microbiological" data since it describes how levels of microorganisms, both spoilage organisms and pathogens, change over the course of time. It consists of thousands of microbial growth and survival curves that have been collated in research establishments and from publications. They form the basis for numerous microbial models presented in ComBase Predictor, a useful tool for industry, academia and regulatory agencies. They can be used in developing new food technologies while maintaining food safety; in teaching and research; in assessing the microbial risk in foods or setting up new guidelines.

Objectives

The purpose of ComBase is to make data and predictive tools on microbial responses to food environments freely available via web-based software. This is done by organising information in a structured database and permitting queries through a user-friendly Internet interface (ComBase Browser).

The ComBase Story

The idea for ComBase, a combined database of microbial responses to food environments was preceded by two independent, but similar initiatives on the two sides of the Atlantic. The Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food in the United Kingdom initiated, in 1988, a coordinated programme to collect data on the growth and death of bacterial pathogens. Those data served as the base on which the first validated, commercialised predictive package, Food MicroModel was built. The task of supporting these developments was taken over, when established, by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA). Parallel to these events in the UK, the Department of Agriculture produced the PMP (Pathogen Modeling Program). The PMP is a free package of validated models developed at the Eastern Regional Research Center of the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

A database structure to pool available predictive microbiology data was developed at the Institute of Food Research (IFR), Norwich, UK. The IFR, FSA and USDA-ARS realised that it would be beneficial to incorporate all the data in a common database. The database was extended with data from European research institutions (data formatting and recording funded by the European Commission), data from members of the USDA-ARS Center of Excellence in Microbiology Modeling and Informatics (CEMMI) and data compiled from scientific literature at IFR. This unified database was called ComBase.

In May 2003, the Chief Executive of the UK Food Standards Agency, the Director of the Institute of Food Research, the Director of the ARS Eastern Regional Research Center, and the USDA-ARS National Program Leader, signed a Concordat to affirm their commitment to support the development, coordination and exploitation of ComBase. As a result of this agreement, the USDA-ARS developed a web-based browser that accesses data in the IFR ComBase database. The Internet version of ComBase was launched in June 2003. Since then, the database has been expanded to over 40,489 data records. In 2006, the University of Tasmania Food Safety Centre became the third full Partner in ComBase.

In September 2006, through funding by the USDA-ARS and USDA Food Safety Inspection Servicevery significant improvements were made to ComBase, specifically in the search and output features. These include:

searching by food, organism and environmental condition
searching by source (i.e. data donor)
detailed results pages
inclusion of Integrated modelling tools

Access ComBase browser

ComBase Associates

In 2006 a “ComBase Associate” status was created for institutions with long-term commitment to the ComBase initiative but without a management role in the Consortium. Since then, the following institutes have joined the initiative as ComBase Associates:
Food Research Department, University of Querétaro, Mexico
Safety and Environment Assurance Centre, Unilever Research, UK
Department of Food Science and Technology, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece
National Food Research Institute, Japan

What's being said aboud ComBase

"ComBase can be a watershed in the development of Predictive Microbiology and its applications"
Professor McMeekin, Co-Director of the Australian Food Safety Centre, in the final chapter of the McKellar, R.C. and Lu, X (eds), 2004: Modelling Microbial responses in Foods. CRC, Boca Raton, Fla., USA; pp 231-235. (McMeekin, T.A: An Essay on the Unrealized Potential of Predictive Microbiology.)

"ComBase is an exemplar of the way that governments and the research community can successfully work together to help improve the safety of food products. The Food Standards Agency strongly supports this initiative, its widespread application and its use to reduce foodborne disease."
Jon Bell
Chief Executive Officer, Food Standards Agency, UK

Acknowledgements

We also would like to acknowledge the data donors, the persons who made ComBase reality and Miroslava Sánchez Mendoza (Laboratorio Estatal de Salud Pública Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico) for the Spanish translation.

Publications

Refereed publications

Le Marc, Y., Pin C. and Baranyi J. (2005).
Methods to determine the growth domain in a multidimensional environmental space. Int.J. Food Microbiol. 100:3-12.

Baranyi J. and Tamplin M. (2004).
ComBase: A Common Database on Microbial Responses to Food Environments. J. Food Prot. 67(9):1834-1840.

Tamplin, M., Baranyi J. and Paoli, G. (2003).
Software programs to increase the utility of predictive microbiology information. In: Modelling Microbial responses in Foods. (Eds: R.C McKellar, X. Lu.) CRC, Boca Raton, Fla.

Non-refereed publications

J. Baranyi, M. Tamplin and T. Ross (2004).
The ComBase Initiative
Microbioloigy Australia, July 2004

J. Baranyi and T.A. Roberts (2004).
Predictive Microbiology - Quantitative Microbial Ecology.
Culture, February, 2004.

Baranyi J, Metris A and Dunford Z. (2003).
ComBase Publicity Leaflet, 2003

Belsten J. and Baranyi J. (2003).
Data exchange for safer food. Food Technology International, 2004

Baranyi J. , Aldus C. & Dunford Z. (2003).
Combase. Food Engineering & Ingredients; 1/8/2003

Peck M. , Baranyi J. & Belsten J. (2003).
Microbial database could cut costs. Food Manufacturer. June/2003.

Baranyi J., Aldus C. and Dunford Z. (2003).
Safety database. The Grocer, 21/06/2003.

Baranyi J., Aldus C. and Dunford Z. (2003).
Predictive microbiology database launched. Institute of Food Technologists Daily News, 19/06/2003.

Baranyi J. , Aldus C. and Dunford Z. (2003).
Nove k dispozici ComBase - databaze modelu prediktivni mikrobiologie Agronavigator, 19/06/2003.

Baranyi J., Aldus C. and Dunford Z. (2003).
Virtual safety. Food Quality News, 17/06/2003

Baranyi, J., Tamplin M. and Peck M. (1993).
ComBase: An international database of microbial responses to food environments. New Food 2003/1. Russel Publishing, UK.