Arkansas – USA, September 26, 2025
In a pivotal breakthrough for agricultural security and public health, new doctoral research targets Salmonella colonization in poultry with new genetic interventions, offering a highly precise path to drastically reduce the risk of foodborne illness in the food supply chain. This Food Safety Win represents a significant step forward in the pre-harvest control of one of the most pervasive foodborne pathogens globally. The pioneering work, conducted at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, USA, has successfully mapped the essential genetic requirements that allow the bacteria to survive in a chicken’s gut, providing clear, actionable targets for new vaccines and feed additives.
This research, which earned its presenter a prestigious first-place award in the Foodborne Pathogens & Contaminants category at a key industry meeting, moves beyond broad-spectrum interventions. Instead, it employs advanced molecular tools to pinpoint the bacteria’s specific vulnerabilities, making future control strategies more effective, sustainable, and less reliant on conventional methods that risk promoting antimicrobial resistance.
Headline Points (HPs):
* Genetic Mapping Success: Doctoral candidate Deborah Olubanjo successfully used genome-wide transposon sequencing (Tn-seq) to identify 62 conditionally essential genes that Salmonella needs to colonize the chicken gut.
* Targeted Interventions: These 62 genes represent novel, focused targets for the development of highly specific control measures, including new-generation vaccines, precision probiotics, and specialized feed additives.
* Ex Vivo Validation: The study validated the genetic requirements using a chicken cecal extract, mimicking the critical gut environment where Salmonella establishes long-term, asymptomatic infection.
* Reducing Foodborne Illness: The ultimate goal of the research is to prevent Salmonella from colonizing chickens, thereby eliminating the primary source of human foodborne illness associated with poultry products.
* Industry Recognition: The work was honoured at the 17th Annual Arkansas Association for Food Protection (AAFP) meeting, underscoring its immediate relevance to the poultry industry in Fayetteville, USA, and globally.
Unlocking Salmonella’s Survival Code in Fayetteville
The groundbreaking study was spearheaded by Deborah Olubanjo, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, USA, working under the guidance of the Kwon Lab. The challenge faced by food safety researchers is that Salmonella enterica, while a severe human pathogen, can colonize chickens’ gastrointestinal tracts, particularly the cecum, without causing any visible symptoms in the birds. This makes the poultry the asymptomatic carrier that introduces the contamination to the processing plant and, eventually, to the consumer. Traditional methods like basic biosecurity and vaccination have helped, but have not fully eradicated the issue, leading to persistent food safety concerns.
Olubanjo’s research tackled this problem at the molecular level. She utilized a high-density genome-wide technique known as transposon sequencing (Tn-seq). This method allows researchers to systematically ‘turn off’ every single gene in the Salmonella Typhimurium bacteria and then observe which of those genes are essential for the bacteria to thrive in a specific environment—in this case, the chicken’s cecum.
Using an ex vivo model—chicken cecal extract media—to accurately replicate the nutritional and competitive environment of the bird’s gut, the research team was able to map the genetic requirements for Salmonella fitness. The results were highly specific and illuminating, identifying 62 conditionally essential genes. These genes are not required for Salmonella to grow under normal lab conditions, but are absolutely critical for its survival and persistence within the competitive and nutrient-limited environment of the poultry gut.
A New Era of Precision Intervention
The identification of these 62 genes represents a profound shift in how the poultry industry can approach Salmonella control. Instead of relying on broad-based antibiotics or general immune boosters, future interventions can now be engineered with precision to disrupt these specific pathways.
For instance, new vaccines could be designed to target the proteins encoded by these essential genes, teaching the chicken’s immune system to neutralize them and prevent colonization. Similarly, probiotics or feed additives could be developed to metabolize the specific nutrients that Salmonella requires, or to introduce metabolites that directly inhibit the functions of the newly identified genes.
This genetic-level targeting holds the promise of being significantly more effective than previous methods, which often struggled because they were not focused on the exact mechanisms of colonization. By disrupting the bacteria’s ‘survival blueprint’ within the bird, the researchers aim to achieve a near-zero Salmonella load entering the processing phase, thereby strengthening the entire food safety chain from the farm gate onward.
Academic Excellence Driving Industry Change
The success of this work was recently recognised at the 17th Annual Arkansas Association for Food Protection (AAFP) meeting, where Deborah Olubanjo secured the first-place prize for her poster presentation. Her achievement highlights the critical role of academic research, particularly within specialised institutions like the University of Arkansas’s Department of Poultry Science, in driving practical, high-impact solutions for the multi-billion-pound global food industry. The findings generated in Fayetteville, USA, are now set to inform new research and product development across the world, offering a viable, sustainable, and highly targeted pathway toward making poultry products safer for consumers globally. The application of sophisticated genetic techniques to solve a long-standing public health problem underscores the powerful synergy between fundamental science and real-world agricultural innovation.
