Shellfish Microbiology Research
Collection of project samples
The shellfish microbiology team has a track record in undertaking research project addressing issue of microbiological food safety associated with shellfish.
- Risk assessment
- Risk management
- Environmental impact from municipal wastewater treatment plants
Current research projects
Towards an early-warning tool predicting enteric virus contamination in coastal watersheds – PreVir
PreVir is a three-year funded Water4All project involving partners from institutes in France, Netherlands, Switzerland and the Marine Institute in Ireland. The overall objective of this project is to work towards developing early-warning tools to adapt viral mitigation measures to extreme climatic events. In Ireland, the focus is to work with the shellfish industry to identify drivers of virus contamination in shellfish areas and to investigate potential environmental triggers that could initiate additional risk management procedures.
Recent Key Publications
The impact of winter relocation and depuration on norovirus concentrations in pacific oysters harvested from a commercial production site 2018 A Rupnik, S Keaveney, L Devilly, F Butler, W Doré Food and Environmental Virology 10, 288-296
Estimating the distribution of norovirus in individual oysters 2020 K Hunt, B Doré, S Keaveney, A Rupnik, F Butler International Journal of Food Microbiology 333, 108785
Evaluation of Norovirus Reduction in Environmentally Contaminated Pacific Oysters During Laboratory Controlled and Commercial Depuration 2021 Agnieszka Rupnik, William Doré, Leon Devilly, James Fahy, Amy Fitzpatrick, Wiebke Schmidt, Kevin Hunt, Francis Butler, Sinéad Keaveney Food Environ Virol; 13(2):229–240.
Impact of COVID-19 Nonpharmaceutical Interventions on the Extent of Norovirus Contamination in Oyster Production Areas in Ireland during Winter 2020 to 2021 2022 Sinéad Keaveney, Agnieszka Rupnik, Amy Fitzpatrick, Leon Devilly, James Fahy, Bill Doré Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 85, No. 10, 2022, Pages 1397–1403
A quantitative exposure assessment model for norovirus in oysters harvested from a classified production area - ScienceDirect 2023 Kevin Hunt, Bill Dore, Sinead Keaveney, Agnieszka Rupnik & Francis Butler. Microbial Risk Analysis 23 100247
Anyone interested in finding out more information on the microbiological safety research conducted at the Marine Institute should contact Bill Doré (bill.dore@marine.ie).