Francesco Pomilio, an Italian national, is a Veterinarian, Head of the Hygiene and Technology of Food and Feed Unit at IZSAM and he works in the Italian National Reference Laboratory for Listeria monocytogenes. His main areas of expertise are related to: food and feed safety; prevalence and persistence of L.monocytogenes in food producing plants; challenge test and shelf life studies in food for human consumption; biofilm formation by L. monocytogenes; validation of- microbiological analytical methods; organization of PT at national level;development of the Italian database of isolates and improvements of the SEAP(Italian data collection system on Foodborne pathogens).He participates as technical expert for the MoH to the DG-SANTE Working Group on Microbiological Criteria. He collaborates regularly with the European Reference Laboratory for L. monocytogenes (EURL Lm) and, in particular, is co-author of guidance documents on shelf-life studies, including the “EURL Lm Guidance Document to evaluate the competence of laboratories implementing challenge tests and durability studies related to L. monocytogenes in RTE foods”, the revision 4 (currently work-in-progress) of the “EURL Lm Technical Guidance Document for conducting shelf-life studies on L. monocytogenes in RTE foods” and the development of a training tool to evaluate competence of the laboratories conducting challenge tests.