Predictive microbiology through the last century. From paper to Excel and towards AI

Abstract

This chapter provides a historical perspective on predictive microbiology: from its inception till its current state, and including potential future developments. A look back to its origins in the 1920s underlies that scientists at the time had great ideas that could not be developed due to the lack of proper technologies. Indeed, predictive microbiology advancements mostly halted till the 1980s, when computing machines became broadly available, evidencing how these technologies were an enabler of predictive microbiology. Nowadays, predictive microbiology is a mature scientific field. There is a general consensus on experimental and computational methodologies, with software tools implementing these principles in a user-friendly manner. As a result, predictive microbiology is currently a useful tool for researchers, food industries and food safety legislators. On the other hand, this methodology has some important limitations that would be hard to solve without a reconsideration of some of its basic principles. In this sense, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science present great promise to advance predictive microbiology even further. Nevertheless, this would require the development of a novel conceptual framework that accommodates these novel technologies into predictive microbiology.