Tailor made courses

The organisation of proficiency tests

In this training you will learn how to organise proficiency tests according to ISO standards. All aspects, like setting up a plan, preparation of materials, check for homogeneity, statistical analysis, stability check and reporting are taken into account.

Depending on your wishes, we can hands-on prepare a proficiency test material and test it for homogeneity during the training. This training can be designed as a short theoretical course of 1 day (excluding the preparation of a PT-material) or as a course of 4 days (including the preparation of the material and a homogeneity check). Digital work sheets for homogeneity, stability an statistical analysis will be made accessible for easy implementation in your laboratory. Furthermore, the prepared material can be shipped to your laboratory to actually use in a proficiency test.

Validation of analytical methods

This course offers a step by step guide to a practical and cost-effective set-up of a validation study. You will get a hands-on technical training guided by leading experts in the field. Furthermore, all digital work sheets will be made accessible (e.g. ResVal) after the training for easy implementation in your laboratory. You will work on approaches for validation of methods (for official control), understanding performance parameters and criteria, construction and execution of a cost effective validation set-up, statistical evaluation of the obtained data in respect to trueness, precision, CCalpha, CCbeta, etc.

Depending on your demands, this workshop can be designed as a short course lasting 2 days (5 day parts), a workshop of 5 days, up to an extensive workshop including laboratory practice of 7 days.

Analysis of antibiotic residues

The course will focus on screening methods (SCAN-Test) for registered antibiotics as well as confirmatory methods using LC-MS/MS. Time will be dedicated to EU regulations and strategies for screening, identification, confirmation and quantification of analytes. Next to the theoretical aspect, practical sessions are included and there is time for guided tours and discussions.

Depending on your demands, this course can be designed as a short course for policy makers (2 days), a full workshop including an in-depth hands-on training on screening or instrumental analysis for laboratory personnel (5 days) or an extensive workshop including a hands-on training on both screening and instrumental analysis (7 days).

Analysis of natural toxins

The course covers the areas of mycotoxins and plant toxins in both food and feed related matrices. It offers both a practical hands-on training and an in-depth theoretical approach. Furthermore a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of EU legislation is presented. The hands-on training covers easy-to-use screenings methods, elaborate LC-MSMS confirmative methods, and very sensitive GC-MSMS methods (after derivatisation) but also will give insight into future analytical development.

The training is offered as a 5 days training but can be tailored to your specific needs.

Analysis of pesticide residues

The course covers every aspect of the analysis of pesticide residues. The target will be on generic screening methods but also single residue methods will be addressed in detail. Besides fruit and vegetables the focus will also be on matrices of animal origin (meat, milk, eggs, honey, ……) and animal feed. Up-to-date high end equipment will be available in the hands-on section of the training and EU legislation and detailed discussion about quality control and relevant validation procedures (e.g. the “SANCO” guidance document) will be a major part of the theoretical approach.

The training is offered as a 5 days training but can be tailored to your specific needs.

Analysis of plant protection products

The course covers CIPAC methods (and more….) for the control of plant protection products (PPPs). Wageningen Food Safety Research offers a hands-on training in which not only the determination of the active substance is performed but also the determination of all kind of physical-chemical parameters (e.g. viscosity, flash point, suspensibility) will be included.

The training is offered as a 5 days training but can be tailored to your specific needs.

Analysis of marine biotoxins

The course covers the areas of marine biotoxins in shellfish. It offers both a practical hands-on training as well as a theoretical approach. The theoretical part will focus on the established confirmatory methods. Time will be dedicated to EU, FDA and CODEX regulations and official methods for screening, identification, confirmation and quantification of the various biotoxins.

The hands-on training covers the practical approaches for sample pre-treatment, LC-MS(/MS) analysis, data interpretation and quality assurance. Critical aspects in all steps of the analysis are discussed and demonstrated. Further new developments in the field will be demonstrated such as cell based bioassays and high resolution mass spectrometry.

After the course you:

• will be informed on the various marine biotoxins in shellfish and their implications to human health;
• will have an overview of the regulatory framework on permitted levels around the globe;
• will have a better insight in assessment of effective strategies for screening and confirmation of marine biotoxins;
• will have gained technical knowledge to implement the LC-MS/MS confirmatory method for the analysis of lipophilic marine biotoxins in your own laboratory;
• will have gained knowledge about quality assurance of analytical methods.

The training is offered as a 5 days training but can be tailored to your specific needs.

Analysis of GMOs, including Next Generation Sequencing

The course provides insight into the enforcement of GMO regulations in Europe: regulations, European validation of methods, activities of the European Network of GMO Laboratories, and the EU-RL (European Reference Laboratory) / NRL (national reference laboratory) activities in the field of GMO traceability, but also a presentation of available databases, including the EUginius database, that compiles detailed data on methods for GMO detection, identification and quantification, including extended (NGS) sequence data.

In addition the course will provide detailed insights into the development and validation of a (real-time) PCR method for GMO identification and quantification, as well as the use of a broad array of screening elements to identify GMOs present in a sample of interest, both authorised GMOs as well as potentially present unauthorised GMOs. Also the subsequent identification of the GMOs in the sample is included, both in the case of known GMOs as well as in those cases where the GMO can not immediately be identified.

Finally, the course will also provide insight into current developments in the area of traceability of GMOs, based on ongoing national and European projects. These projects aim to improve the potential to identify unauthorised GMOs that have not yet been assessed for their safety for humans, animals and the environment, and at the same time aim for improved cost-effectiveness of existing and new methods.
Depending on your demands, this workshop can be designed as a short course lasting 2.5 days up to a hands-on workshop of 5 days.

Species identification

The course provides insight into the different options to identify species, in the case of single products (individual fish, larger meat pieces, different cereals etc.), but also in the case of more complex products. For single species real-time PCR and barcoding approaches will be discussed, for more complex products different NGS strategies can be followed depending on the type of samples and the questions underlying the analyses.

In addition to this, more specific strategies to identify different types of endangered species can be discussed, including screening strategies, as well as strategies to allow identification of the precise endangered species of interest. The limitation here will be the available sequence data in the different databases.

The course includes the European legislation with relation to species identification (different areas: animal feed stipulations, food authenticity in general, correct labelling, endangered species, other issues in relation to species identification).

Depending on your demands, this workshop can be designed as a short course lasting 2.5 days up to a hands-on workshop of 5 days.

Food fraud and authenticity

The course offers a general strategy towards analytical techniques in combination with chemometrics for authenticating food products. This implies that participants will be trained in developing optimized analytics (e.g. GC, LC, NIRs, MIR, Raman, E-tongue, PTR-MS, microscopics, and several types of MS) towards a number of authentication problems (e.g. organic status, geographical provenancing, verification of label claims). Different food matrices and cases will be considered. For example organic status of eggs, wheat, coffees, and milk, meat and fish adulteration and authenticity of olive oils, herbs and honey. Trainees can get laboratory hands-on experience on request for specific authenticity problems. Furthermore, the participants will be familiarized with chemometric approaches towards authentication by hands-on experience with Piroutte, The Unscrambler and R by means of data sets from real life. Finally, the leading Wageningen Food Safety Research scientists will update your personnel on the latest developments in portable and bench-top laboratory equipment in the world of food authentication.

Depending on your demands, the course can be designed as a short theoretical base approach with hands-on with chemometrics (2.5 days). The course can be expanded by laboratory hands-on with techniques of your choice. The time-span of the course will be tuned according to your specific demands.