It’s said that "good things come in threes," but for veterinary diagnostic researchers at Kansas State University, that number is five. [Source: KSU News, December 16, 2016]
The "good things" in this case are a set of five research grants obtained through the Swine Health Information Center, Ames, Iowa, for developing tests to reliably diagnose a very specific set of swine-related pathogens.
Ying Fang, a professor of molecular virology, said that Kansas State University’s location and its connections and partnerships with the incoming National Bio and Agro-defense Facility, the university’s Biosecurity Research Institute, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Services and Arthropod-Borne Animal Disease Research Unit, Kansas Department of Agriculture and the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor were important factors in leveraging the grants, which total $292,667.
The following grants were received through the Swine Health Information Center:
- "Detection and differentiation of Seneca Valley virus (SVV) from foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV)," $65,700, to Bai, principal investigator; and Fang, Lalitha Peddireddi, Xuming Liu, Yanhua Li and Anderson.
- "Detection and differentiation of PCV3 from PCV2a, PCV2b and the highly prevalent PCV2d mutant strains," $56,700, to Bai, principal investigator; and Fang, Peddireddi, Liu, Li and Anderson.
- "Development of sensitive and reliable diagnostic assay to detect atypical porcine pestivirus (APPV) in swine," $55,267, to Peddireddi, principal investigator; and Bai, Fang, Liu, Richard Hesse, Benjamin Hause, Anderson, Bailey Arruda and Paulo Arruda.
- "Multiplex real-time RT-PCR assay for simultaneous detection and differentiation of swine influenza C, D and B viruses," $58,500, to Liu, principal investigator; and Bai, Fang, Peddireddi, Li and Anderson.
- "Development of a TaqMan quantitative RT-PCR test for porcine parainfluenza virus 1," $56,500, to Li, principal investigator; and Fang, Bai, Liu, Peddireddi, Anderson and Chase Stahl.