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Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases

CEEZAD

1800 Denison Ave
Mosier Hall, Room P200
Manhattan, KS  66506

785-532-2793   
785-532-3373 fax
CEEZAD@ksu.edu

Pockit Xpress Mobile Laboratory

The Challenge: Rapid, reliable detection and response are critical to mitigate the economic and public health impacts of infectious agents, including transboundary animal diseases (TADs). Althoough TADs are not presently in the United States, they pose a significant potential threat to U.S. livestock. Beyond that, TADs that are zoonotic in nature can cause disease in humans.

The Solution: Researchers at the Center of Excellence for Emerging Zoonotic and Animal Diseases (CEEZAD), in collaboration with GeneReach  USA, an industry partner, are developing and evaluating a suite of pathogen detection tests to expand the capabilities of GeneReach PockIt Xpress Mobile Laboratory, a commercial off-the-shelf product presently used to test for endemic diseases in companion and livestock animals such as dogs, cats, poultry, swine and horses.

CEEZAD researchers are working to expand application of PockIt Xpress to enable the immediate detection of TADs in a broader range of animals. The enhanced device could support emergency response, preparedness, planning, mitigation implementation, and routine surveillance of high-impact pathogens. The device would also support critical control points for TADs in the areas where they occur, offering additional benefit to epidemiologists and global infectious disease control personnel.

About PockIt Xpress:

  1. It is deployable, easy-to-use, and high-precision equipment.
  2. It can be used without refrigeration since testing reagents are stable at room temperatures for more than 12 months.
  3. It has been approved by the World Organization for Animal Health for the detection of pathogens of farmed shrimp in Asia.
  4. It features a reduced testing time of eight samples per hour.

What’s Next?: CEEZAD and GeneReach research hers are developing and validating reagents for PockIt Xpress that will enable it to detect several serious livestock pathogens, including Foot and Mouth disease Virus, classical swine Fever Virus, African Swine Fever Virus, and Rift Valley Fever Virus. Early results show that detection of Rift Valley Fever Virus with the mobile lab patches the precision of lab-based technology.

Applications: Developers of PockIt XPress believe it can be useful tool:

  1. For National Animal Health Laboratory networks that support U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and the Centers For Disease Control.
  2. As a routine surveillance tool by border patrol agents and at ports-of-entry.
  3. In federal infectious disease investigations for rapid detection or ruling out Foot and Mo0uth Disease.
  4. As part of a global control and mitigation strategy for high-consequence pathogens.