Salmonella bacteria, shown here in a petri dish, are a major cause of foodborne illnesses. Hundreds of FDA scientists are working to develop the tools needed to keep bacterial and chemical contaminants out of the food supply, and to rapidly identify the disease-causing bacteria that do infiltrate foods and cause outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. Among them are the researchers at FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in College Park, Md. Salmonella bacteria, a common cause of food-borne disease, invade an immune cell. Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria. They are chemoorganotrophs, obtaining their energy from oxidation and reduction reactions using organic sources, and are facultative anaerobes. Salmonella is closely related to the Escherichia genus and are found worldwide in cold- and warm-blooded animals (including humans), and in the environment. They cause illnesses like typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, and food-borne illness. They enter the digestive tract of humans and other mammals in contaminated food and cause abdominal pains and violent diarrhea.