Cornell Receives $6.6 for NIH Funded Research on Food and Waterborne Diseases

Food- and waterborne diseases are focus of new NIH-funded research unit at Cornell's colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture and Life Sciences

A $6.6 million contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will establish a new program at Cornell University's colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture and Life Sciences to study food- and waterborne diseases common to animals and humans. The new program is called the Zoonoses Research Unit.

Scientists in the Cornell veterinary college's Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences department and the Cornell-based New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory will collaborate with researchers in several agriculture college sections, including the departments of Food Science and Biological and Environmental Engineering.

Alfonso Torres, principal investigator and director of the new program, also serves as the veterinary college's associate dean for veterinary public policy and director of the diagnostic laboratory. Co-principal investigator in the new unit is Yrjo Gröhn, chair of the veterinary college's population medicine department. Torres says the Zoonoses Research Unit expects to:

- develop and adapt on-farm diagnostic methods for food- and waterborne pathogens and create an Internet database for exchange of 'sub-typing' data about unusual and emerging variations of disease-causing organisms;

- conduct field studies to better understand the ecology, transmission and epidemiology of food- and waterborne zoonotic diseases, and

- implement cost-effective intervention strategies and develop an emergency response team.

Three years ago, Gröhn joined forces with Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences faculty members Martin Wiedmann and Antje Baeumner to initiate an interdepartmental study focused on the rapid detection and prevention of zoonotic diseases. Their initiative gained momentum in 2002 when the veterinary college recruited Torres, who at the time was the deputy administrator of veterinary services for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Veterinary Medicine Dean Donald F. Smith describes this multidisciplinary teamwork as 'reflecting the best efforts of Cornell's scientific community, using collaborative research in the College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to meet pragmatic needs.'

Additional investigators from the veterinary college include Edward Dubovi, Hussni Mohammed, Daryl Nydam, Ynte Schukken and Susan Wade. The unit will include D.V.M./Ph.D. and Ph.D.-level investigators from Cornell's Institute of Food Science, Nanobiotechnology Center, Center for the Environment and the Cornell-based New York State Water Resources Institute. Collaborating institutions include the New York State Department of Health/Wadsworth Center, Task Force on Zoonotic and Emerging Disease Surveillance, Department of Agriculture and Markets, and the Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health at Bassett Healthcare, as well as the USDA's Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.

One hundred percent of project costs will be financed with the $6,624,145 NIAID contract.