SHIC Approves Nine New Plan of Work Projects

Nine new research projects have been launched as part of the Swine Health Information Center's 2024 Plan of Work. The Swine Health Information Center has approved funding for nine research projects designed to address research priorities outlined in its 2024 Plan of Work.

SHIC Executive Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder says the effort helps the organization fulfill its mission to generate new intelligence for preventing, preparing for and responding to emerging swine disease threats.

Quote-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:

These projects are between six to 12 months in duration and they are being conducted by a diverse group of investigators across three different institutions including Iowa State University, the University of Missouri and the University of Illinois.These newly funded projects really address the SHIC research priorities, including investigating the disease spill over risk from wean to market pigs to sow herds, investigating full genome sequencing as a forensic diagnostic tool to understand epidemiological links between farms and introduction risk, also investigating the pathogenesis and interpretation of test results for Porcine circovirus including Porcine circovirus type-3 as well type-4.

We're also looking into early disease outbreak warning signals and how to we best utilize population-based sample types for emerging disease testing. We've also added E. coli to our domestic disease monitoring platform, including the swine disease reporting system to understand what's going on with E. coli types and serotypes throughout the industry and understanding what the risk of E. coli are to our swine population.

We're also looking at the clinical relevance of newly identified agents and syndromes from veterinary diagnostic lab submissions and also understanding how we can inform those diseases matrices to better prioritise pathogen risks to the U.S.

Dr. Niederwerder says results of these projects will be released through its web sit at swinehealth.org as they become available.For more visit Farmscape.Ca.