National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense

Seven veterinary professionals from Ukraine took part in a 12-day training workshop hosted by the FAZD Center. Dr. Heather Simmons, theme leader for Education and Outreach at the FAZD Center, said the workshop was designed to familiarize the researchers and diagnosticians with food-animal production and veterinary diagnostics in the United States. The workshop began April 27, when the Ukrainian delegation arrived in Amarillo, Texas, where they were greeted by FAZD Center representative Dr. James Butler. The visitors met with Ross Wilson, president and CEO of the Texas Cattle… Read More →

The latest issue of Bovine Veterinarians features a cover story on the role of the FAZD Center’s AgConnect data-sharing technology in using syndromic surveillance to monitor for outbreaks of animal diseases. The story explains how the technology is enhancing a pilot program in New Mexico and Texas that equips food-animal veterinarians with iPads to report disease symptoms in real time. The technology also allows managers to analyze the data as it comes in. The story features epidemiologist Dr. Lindsey Holmstrom and principal investigator Dr. Tom Hairgrove, as well as… Read More →

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service and Department of Defense Defense Threat Reduction Agency (USDA FAS and DOD DTRA) awarded a $140,000 grant to the FAZD Center for an international training program for mid-career scientists. Partners include the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, Texas Animal Health Commission, and USDA Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health to train personnel in the countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania so that they may develop disease surveillance, diagnostics, and monitoring systems for Brucellosis detection and surveillance. Personnel from these… Read More →

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA FAS) Cochran Program awarded a $53,954 grant to the FAZD Center and the Borlaug Institute to train personnel from Turkmenistan in veterinary disease diagnostics and laboratory management. Personnel from Turkmenistan will travel to the U.S. to learn veterinary diagnostic skills from FAZD collaborators, including the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, Caliber Biotherapeutics, the National Center for Therapeutics and Manufacturing, the Texas Institute for Pre-Clinical Studies, Applied Biosystems, and… Read More →

The Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and the Boloshak Foundation awarded a $68,219 grant to the FAZD Center to send a visiting scholar to the United States to learn the latest techniques in epidemiology, veterinary diagnostics, and biosurveillance from the following collaborators: Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS), and Texas A&M AgriLife Research. A reciprocal visit will be made to the National Center for Biotechnology in Astana, Kazakhstan. The grant follows up on the success of a 2011-12 program… Read More →

The FAZD Center expects to hold its next open call for proposals in October, the center said today. Through a peer-review process, the FAZD Center periodically considers white papers for competitively funding research and development (R&D) and education projects that can be completed in a 24-month period or less. These projects will relate to transformative, evolving and/or maturing research and development technologies that demonstrate significant improvement in the FAZD Center mission or operations of FAZD Center stakeholders. International submissions are encouraged. To learn more about the process, visit… Read More →

Martha Echevarria, a senior undergraduate student mentored by Dr. Pamela J. Ferro in the laboratory of Dr. Blanca Lupiani at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, was awarded second place in the Southern Science Symposium: Cell Biology and Careers competition. Echevarria presented her research titled “The Investigation of Simport Matrix-Chaperones for Avian Influenza Sample Storage and Transportation” at the Ponce School of Medicine and Health Science in Ponce, Puerto Rico in November. Dr. Lupiani is a FAZD Center principal investigator.