DEVELOPMENT OF DATA ANALYTICS PLATFORM TO ALLOW FOR PUBLIC HEALTH CLASSIFICATION OF SALMONELLA SEROVARS AND CLADES AND IMPROVED FOCUS OF CONTROL STRATEGIES TO ACHIEVE BENEFICIAL PUBLIC HEALTH OUTCOMES

Goal 1: Perform comprehensive comparative analyses of Salmonella genomes representing serovars associated with poultry and beef to identify genomic features putatively involved in virulence and transmission-associated characteristics.Goal2: Assess the fitness of selected Salmonella strains representing poultry- and beef-associated serovars under infection-relevant conditions.Goal 3: Identify and validate genomic features that are predicted to be related to virulence using isogenic mutants.Goal 4: Create an analytical platform for virulence potential assessment of emerging Salmonella serovars based on WGS data.