UC Davis Launches the New Disease BioPortal to Help Farmers and Veterinarians Better Protect Animal Health

By Tom Hinds

The University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine has launched a new version of the Disease BioPortal, an online platform designed to help veterinarians, producers, and diagnostic labs make faster, data-driven health and biosecurity decisions.

The Disease BioPortal makes it easier to track important livestock health issues, spot disease trends early, and make informed decisions to protect animals and operations.

Developed by the Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance under the leadership of Dr. Beatriz Martínez-López, Disease BioPortal integrates diagnostic and field data from multiple sources and delivers interactive maps, dashboards, and predictive modeling in real time. The result: improved outbreak detection, reduced response times, and better farm management strategies.

“The adoption by some of the top swine industry producers, large pharma companies and veterinary clinics demonstrates the trust and impact of this platform,” said Dr. Martínez-López, professor of epidemiology and disease modeling at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “As we expand to additional sectors, our goal is to provide the same level of support and insight to help safeguard animal health, food systems, and ultimately public health.

Producers and veterinarians already using the platform say it has transformed the way they manage animal health data:

• Dr. Brandi Burton, Suidae Health & Production Veterinary Clinic Veterinarian:
  “Disease BioPortal has allowed me to serve our clients better by analyzing sequence data in real time and communicating it quickly. The mapping components are especially powerful for tracking how strains spread geographically. It's a database that continues to grow and provide insights, which helps producers make timely decisions.”
• Dr. Rebecca Robbins, PIC Health Assurance Veterinarian:
  “The Disease BioPortal team recognizes the promise of Big Data for veterinary medicine. Their dashboards bring complex data directly to field veterinarians. It’s an amazing feat of execution because the data we work with lacks the structure of those pipelines available from human health care or manufacturing sectors.”
• Dr. Sebastian Figueras Gourgues, Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinarian:
  “Disease BioPortal can be used as an epidemiological tool to identify biosecurity failures in given geographic areas. It is also useful to discriminate lateral infections or field strains, internal recirculation, or vaccine-like strain detections to apply different management strategies according to those findings.”
• Dr. Maria Jose Clavijo, Iowa State University Veterinary Diagnostic Hospital:
  “Disease BioPortal helps us turn diagnostic data into surveillance insights. Whole-genome sequencing integration allows us to detect bacterial disease trends early and provide timely information to veterinarians and producers.”