Publications by authors named "T Looft"

Vaccines that cross-protect across serovars of () would be a beneficial intervention against emerging and persistent isolates of concern for the turkey industry. The 2017-2019 foodborne outbreak of serovar Reading (. Reading) revealed the need for effective control of this serovar in turkey production.

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Chicken ceca are a rich source of bacteria, including zoonotic pathogens such as Salmonella enterica. The microbiota includes strains/species carrying antimicrobial resistance genes and horizontal transfer of resistance determinants between species may increase the risk to public health and farming systems. Possible sources of these antimicrobial resistance donors - the eggshell carrying bacteria from the hen vertically transmitted to the offspring, or the barn environment where chicks are hatched and raised - has been little explored.

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Poultry-associated salmonellosis results in significant costs to poultry producers and consumers. Given the vertically integrated nature of the United States poultry industry, a better understanding of Salmonella ecology throughout all levels of poultry production is essential. One nexus point is the hatchery, where eggs from multiple broiler breeder farms are incubated and hatched, with the chicks being sent to numerous farms; therefore, the hatchery represents an ideal area to understand preharvest Salmonella ecology and flow.

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is a global bacterial foodborne pathogen associated with a variety of contaminated food products. Poultry products are a common source of -associated foodborne illness, and an estimated 7% of human illnesses in the United States are attributed to turkey products. From November 2017 to March 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a turkey-associated outbreak of multidrug-resistant (MDR; resistant to ≥3 antimicrobial classes) serovar Reading (.

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spp., particularly and , are major food safety concerns, transmitted to humans mainly via contaminated poultry meat. In a previous study, we found that some commercial broiler farms consistently produced -free flocks while others consistently reared -colonized flocks, and significant differences in the gut microbiota compositions between the two types of farm categories were revealed.

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