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What we do at the FAZD Center

The mission of the FAZD Center is to develop the products our nation needs to defend the public health and the agriculture industry from foreign animal diseases as well as zoonotic diseases (those that are passed from animals to humans). These products will meet the needs of preventing disease, detecting disease, responding to disease and recovering from disease. In addition, the Center creates risk communication materials and education product to improve public and professional knowledge about the threat of these diseases.

The FAZD Center's current focus is on four diseases:


1. Foot and Mouth Disease

2. Rift Valley Fever

3. Avian Influenza

4. Brucellosis


Methods and capabilities under DHS priority areas

Addressing high-priority short-term products provides an experiential basis for developing the ongoing strategies and sustained capacity of the Center that are called for in the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). The relationship between the core capacities of the Center (methods and capabilities) and the five DHS priority areas is shown in following chart.

Our products:

The first three years are designed to produce four general products:

1.- specific biological research products and outcomes,

2.- robust databases and models that can be used to assist in decision-making, predicting needs, and testing outcomes,

3.- the application of the models to specific needs of the Department, and

4.- expanded professional and educational resources directed to foreign animal and zoonotic disease – all of which are directly relevant to countering the threat of agricultural bioterrorism. 

The scope of work has evolved from comprehensive analysis of the needs and challenges that will be inherent to creating a successful Center.  The inter-related areas of research that are offered can generally be classified as either ‘biological’ or ‘modeling’.  Strong, extramurally funded research programs already exist in each of these two general categories.  Research funds from the Center will be complementary and augmenting, thereby leveraging existing funding, with the specific intention of developing new research in areas of identified need.