Improving the Added Value of Raw Milk and Dairy Products through Innovative Tools and Techniques

Dear Colleagues,

Milk is a highly appreciated and nutritious food. However, infectious diseases (e.g., mastitis) and the presence or growth of undesirable microorganisms cause significant losses of milk production and animal illness. In addition, mastitis and undesirable microorganisms are responsible for milk quality problems that impact the flavor, safety, and shelf life of dairy products. Therefore, both issues have important economic consequences. On the other hand, lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which represent the dominant population of milk, have a positive impact on the quality and safety of the final products through fermentation. Methods of detecting clinical or subclinical mastitis are mainly applied at the animal level and less at the herd level. The current approach for the prevention or treatment of disease is based on the administration of antibiotics. This approach, however, has a high cost and often does not have the desired results because of microorganisms’ resistance to antibiotics (AMR). Therefore, there is a need for alternatives capable of controlling mastitis in a natural way, contributing at the same time to the sustainability of the dairy farm business. Consequently, articles (review and original papers) dealing with tools, methods or techniques (microbiological, molecular including omics, and statistical including bioinformatics) that allow disease surveillance and prevention (control), rapid detection of subclinical mastitis cases and causative agents, epidemiology, prediction and modeling of the disease, precision dairy farming related to milk production and udder health, characterization of pathogens (foodborne and mastitis-related) including their antimicrobial resistance, detection of microbial populations found in milk and dairy products, contribution/impact of specific microbes to/on quality and safety of dairy products, and modeling of microbial population in milk or dairy products are welcome for submission in this Special Issue.

Dr. Marios Mataragas
Dr. Loulouda Bosnea
Topic Editors