A new phase of the Pathogens-in-Foods (PIF) database is set to begin with the recently approved NextGen PIF project, “Intelligent Data Analytics and Antimicrobial Resistance Mapping in the Pathogens-in-Foods database.” The project closely aligns with the doctoral research of Lucas Ribeiro Silva, Research Fellow in the PIF database project and PhD candidate in Intelligent Systems Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Bragança (UPB).

His PhD investigates how artificial intelligence can support the full evidence lifecycle in PIF, from title-and-abstract screening and scientific PDF processing to structured data extraction, validation, provenance tracking and human curation. The research also extends the PIF Intelligent Agent developed during his master’s work, broadening its analytical capabilities while keeping statistical computation deterministic, traceable and reproducible. Together, these developments aim to reduce manual effort, strengthen data quality and support more efficient and transparent use of scientific evidence in food-safety research.