A January outbreak of Salmonella caused search for the culprit.  With the use of modern biotechnology, genetic sampling and detective work, investigators traced the source of the food pathogen to a distributor of pepper.

Have you ever wandered through the aisles of a grocery store and noticed the variety of peppers available — everything from sweet bell peppers to spicy hot jalapeño peppers? Until recently, much of that variety has been exaggerated and poorly understood. But this is due to change, as Prof. Steven Tanksley, plant breeding and genetics, and his collaborators at DNA LandMarks publish the first completed pepper genome sequence online.

Tanksley and DNA LandMarks — a genomics unit of the Plant Science division of the BASF Group — started their collaboration five years ago when DNA LandMarks provided Tanksley with its private library of pepper genetic markers.