J. David Legan, PhD
Director of Science
David earned his Ph.D. in Food Technology from the University of Reading in the UK by modeling the ecology of mixed microbial populations, and then moved to Campden BRI in a variety of microbiological food safety research and client service roles. During that time, he was project lead for the Bacillus component of the UK’s pathogen modeling program. He moved again to Nabisco Research in New Jersey where he ran the corporate microbiology lab and developed a program of preservation technology development and microbial modeling. After the Kraft Foods acquisition, he moved to Chicago to work on Food Safety and Preservation research, and through modeling and validation studies:
- Optimized Oscar Mayer’s use of lactate and diacetate and their naturally cultured alternatives as Listeria-control agents in Ready to Eat meats
- Specified process conditions central to Oscar Mayer’s commercial launch of High Pressure Pasteurization of naturally cured RTE meats
David had responsibility for the Kraft cultures R&D group, developed a partnership to explore microwave sterilization leading to several patents, and led a program that developed an internal proprietary natural antimicrobial commercialized in several Kraft products. Technologies from his group supported approximately $4 billion in annual sales.
After years as a microbiology "client", he is now back in the "provider" role as Director of Science at Eurofins Microbiology Laboratories, Inc., by way of the Covance Food Solutions group based in Madison, WI, which he joined in 2016. In this role, he ensures appropriate method validation, explores new testing technologies, and fields multiple complicated food microbiology questions.
Products that his team has evaluated or developed and launched include:
- The 3M MDS platform in the Madison microbiology laboratory
- Flow cytometry for enumeration of probiotics
- Strain-level confirmation of probiotic identification using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
- Next-generation sequencing using the Oxford Nanopore Technologies GridION sequencing platform for microbial identification and microbiome analysis
Below are resources from David:
Food and supplement testing has been a necessary part of the safe supply chain which means so have the chemicals that go along with this and until today, there have been very few options that positively affect the environment. Supercritical Fluid Extraction with Supercritical Fluid Chromatography now offers an environmentally safer method that is also faster, as sensitive and as selective as your current methods. We present an alternative way to extract and measure vitamins.
Learn about the most common food pathogens and their impact in food handling and production. Testing your products can help manage risk of contamination from pathogens. Partner with Eurofins for all of your food safety testing needs.
In this blog article Jeff Stassi discusses the importance of designing a meaningful, comprehensive testing program for dietary supplements.
How can FT-IR be used for identifying foreign material in my product? David Riggs, President of Eurofins SF Analytical discusses this topic in this short video. Eurofins publishes our Ask an Expert Series weekly on our social media platforms.
The dietary supplement industry has become an increasingly regulated industry since the introduction of the dietary supplement GMPs in 2007. There is still to this day an industry confusion as to the requirements needed to comply with the dietary supplement GMP requirement to use a scientifically valid method. So does this mean the method must be validated?
How do you determine the identity of a unknown material I found in my product? Patricia Quinn from Eurofins SF Analytical in New Berlin, WI discusses this topic in this short video. Eurofins publishes our Ask an Expert Series weekly on our social media platforms.
Rapid Analysis of In-Process Fish Oil by Quality Trait Analysis (QTA) Infrared Spectroscopy
Have a product needing a Facts Panel and not sure which one to use? This article explains the differences between food and dietary supplement labeling and what food and supplement manufacturers must include on their labels.
Eurofins Scientific was founded in 1987 with four employees to market a ground-breaking testing technology using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance to detect whether sugar had been added during the winemaking process to increase alcohol content. In the following years, the patented SNIF-NMR® technology was used to verify the origin and purity of several types of food and beverages and identify sophisticated fraud not detectable by other methods.
A guide to frequently asked questions around testing dietary supplements and ingredients with US Pharmacopeia (USP) microbiology methods. Learn more about testing samples with USP.
