Peter Muriana's Food Microbiology Lab

03/25/2026

Congratulations to my graduate students for being awarded a Stanley Gilliland Memorial Fellowship ($1,000) that was presented at the FAPC Research Symposium Awards Ceremony.

03/25/2026

Congratulations to my graduate students for being awarded 1st place (Pratikchhya Adhikari), 2nd place (Wyatt McCune), and 3rd place (Caitlyn Quinn) at the R.M. Kerr Food & Ag Products Center Food Science Research Symposium (March 24, 2026).

12/10/2025

12/10/2025

Congratulations to my PhD student, Mrs. Pratikchhya Adhikari (and co-authors), on publication of her first 2 research papers on safety of air-dried beef.

The first one shows new evidence that challenges an existing regulatory practice in that acid-adapted Salmonella cultures are more sensitive to biltong & droewors processing of air-dried meat. Regulatory bodies are promoting the use of acid-adapted challenge cultures for process validation of acidic processing treatments with the intent that they would be more tolerant to the actions of acid thereby needing a robust process to obtain adequate pathogen reduction. Our results found the opposite for Salmonella and emphasizing that the requirement to use acid-adapted cultures in challenge studies should be carefully evaluated.

-> https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8007/5/4/106

The second paper shows that since we could not achieve the targeted 5-log reduction of pathogens with non-acid-adapted cultures, we had to use an additional ingredient. Using a refined liquid smoke extract (reduced flavor and color), we were able to achieve >7-log reductions with Salmonella serovars, Listeria monocytogenes, and STEC E. coli during processing resulting in a safe product.

-> https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8007/5/4/145

11/22/2024

Check out this video on recent food safety concerns featuring insights from Oklahoma State University Animal and Food Sciences Professor, Dr. Peter Muriana, along with Kendra Dougherty from the Oklahoma State Department of Health. During their discussion, they address a significant recall from an Oklahoma facility and share valuable insights on the importance of food safety. Don’t miss this critical conversation!

https://youtu.be/dBIHo-K44ls?si=lylp4veVato2OuNb

08/20/2024

Setting up another fermenter run with gastrointestinal fluid from pig small intestine vs cecum, supplemented with ground feed given to pigs in our pig trials from which we will pull samples for microbiome analysis (start vs finish) and to plate in biochemical assay agar media looking for proteolytic, saccharolytic, lipolytic, and cellulolytic bacteria). We have hook ups to base to maintain desired pH and pumping in nitrogen for anaerobic environment. The reason i’m proud of this setup is that it is a good condition old system, 14 years past service life where the (young) tech service guys told me they could not help me fix it, but sometimes tenacity (and stubbornness) sometimes win out. 🤭🤗.

07/28/2024

USDA-NIFA Project Director's Meetings. Just got back from my 3rd USDA-NIFA project director's meeting in 5 weeks (the PI on USDA-NIFA grants are supposed to show up every year and give an update on what was done on research with their grant funding you were provided).

The 1st one was at UMass (Amherst, MA) on our 2-year seed grant: Stability and Increased Functionality of Several Bacillus Strains with Probiotic Properties, in the Novel Foods & Innovative Manufacturing Technologies grant program category.

The 2nd one was at the start of the IAFP Annual Conference (Long Beach, CA) on our 3-year standard grant: "Filling USDA-FSIS Food Safety `Knowledge Gaps`: The Safety of Ambient-Temperature Air-Dried Beef (Droewors)", in the Food Safety & Defense grant program category.

The 3rd one was at the tail end of the AAAS Annual Meeting (Calgary, Canada) on our 2-year seed grant: "In Vitro And In Vivo Evaluation of Bacteria from Swine-Related Sources as Direct-Fed Probiotics for Enhanced Feed Utilization", in the Animal Nutrition, Growth and Lactation grant program category.