A new institute on campus will help keep food safe, from the field to the table.

The Institute for Food Safety and Security is an “umbrella organization and administrative structure that will help bring all entities of food safety and security together,” said Don Reynolds, associate dean of the Veterinary Medicine Research Institute.

The institute will be comprised of faculty in the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, Veterinary Medicine and Family and Consumer Sciences, said Catherine Woteki, dean of the College of Agriculture.

Much of the institute’s focus will be on research done either on the laboratory bench or in the field.

The institute will provide for better communication between faculty across the different colleges, said Wolfgang Kliemann, associate vice provost for research administration.

“What was needed here was to bring together [faculty] and concentrate on the overarching goal of food,” he said.

The institute will also train veterinarians to recognize foreign animal diseases.

Training like this could prevent the epidemic spread of sickness in food animals, like the foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom, from happening here, Reynolds said.

The institute will secure a safe food supply for consumers and increase food availability by preventing and counteracting against outbreaks of diseases and threats to food safety, he said.

Research done by the institute might improve food taste as well, Kliemann said.

“[It will] look at and investigate ways to design crops that suit specific taste buds, like oil with less cholesterol,” he said.

Woteki said the institute might bring national recognition to Iowa State.

“It will raise visibility of our research nationally and will permit faculty to work together in new ways and help faculty compete for funding to continue the work we are doing,” she said.