• What is the Laboratory Association Cooperative Agreement Program?
• What are its goals?
• Who is the current awardee?
• Who can I contact for more information?
• Constituent Update - Two New CAPs to Enhance HAF Lab Testing Capabilities and Capacity
• Laboratory Association Cooperative Agreement Program Fact Sheet (Version April 2022)

What is the Laboratory Association Cooperative Agreement Program?

The intended outcome of this Funding Opportunity Announcement is to support and enhance human and animal food testing laboratory activities, specifically through the activities of an association that will offer trainings, workshops, meetings, and other educational resources; conduct research on national testing capability and capacity; prepare best practices and other guidance manuals; support ISO/IEC 17025 laboratory accreditation for non-accredited laboratories; and other activities to support human and animal food resting laboratories.

What are its goals?

State and local laboratories play a critical role in the identification, containment, and prevention of foodborne illness. FDA is committed to assisting these laboratories in building laboratory capacity and capability; maintaining and expanding the scope of ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation, and supporting the groundbreaking work achieved through the GenomeTrakr network. Effective leveraging of resources and harmonization of efforts will require extensive collaboration with relevant initiatives, including those of federal partners, national initiatives, associations/organizations, and State and local partners.

The intended outcome of this FAO it to assist laboratories with building laboratory capacity and capability, in addition to assisting FDA in the development of trainings, workshops, and educational materials, and meetings in support of LFFM and unfunded laboratories conducting testing of human and animal food samples.

This cooperative agreement is only available to non-profit, national associations/organizations that represent state and local laboratories that conduct food and/or animal feed testing on behalf of state and local regulatory programs.

One of the project objectives is to research into the development and implementation of trainings, workshops, and other educational materials and resources for use by laboratories in the LFFM, in addition to unfunded laboratories seeking to achieve, maintain, and enhance ISO/IEC accreditation. Areas in need include effective workshops and seminars on laboratory procedures, data transfer (to NCBI and FDA data systems), document control, quality management systems, continuous improvement, sample collection, and risk assessment.

Who is the current awardee?

• The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) has been awarded this cooperative agreement.
• Over $419K in funding under this cooperative agreement program.

Who can I contact for more information?

Specific questions on this program can be directed to the appropriate Office of Partnerships' contact within the Division of Partnership Investments and Agreements. Please visit the Office of Partnerships Contacts webpage to obtain a downloaded version of the staffing roster.

You can also find contact information and more in the funding opportunity announcement.

General questions can be directed to the Office of Partnerships' general mailbox: [email protected].