2019 Press Releases
December 10, 2019
CEEZAD director addresses OIE on fight against ASF
Two Kansas State University faculty members, including the director of the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases (CEEZAD), recently updated researchers at the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in Paris, France, on CEEZAD’s novel mitigation strategies against a disease impacting much of the world’s pork industry.
Dr. Juergen A. Richt briefed OIE staff members and experts on mitigation, vaccine and diagnostic strategies for African Swine Fever, which is spreading across eastern and central Europe as well as most of Asia.
The disease, which is not a health threat to humans but is almost always fatal in pigs, has depleted pork supplies in many areas, and has been cited as a major reason for recent increases in the price of food worldwide.
Since its discovery in China in August of 2018, “more than 50 percent of Chinese pigs have been culled or died with African Swine Fever,” Dr. Richt said. He noted that China once produced 50 percent of pork in the world, 700 million pigs a year. “This is not happening any more.”
The biggest problem, he said, is there is no vaccine, and no treatment for this disease. “The only way to control ASF is bio-security and culling of animals.”
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is the world’s oldest and leading organization of researchers into animal-related diseases.
Dr. Roman Pogranichniy, a virologist and faculty member in Kansas State University’s Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology, and section head of the Virology and Serology Laboratory (http://www.ksdl.org), also lectured at OIE. He discussed recent efforts to train veterinarians and pig producers in Ukraine – where the disease is widespread – on ASF mitigation and control strategies to prevent disease from spreading and from being introduced into pig production facilities.
December 10, 2019
CEEZAD director addresses OIE on fight against ASF
Two Kansas State University faculty members, including the director of the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases (CEEZAD), recently updated researchers at the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in Paris, France, on CEEZAD’s novel mitigation strategies against a disease impacting much of the world’s pork industry.
Dr. Juergen A. Richt briefed OIE staff members and experts on mitigation, vaccine and diagnostic strategies for African Swine Fever, which is spreading across eastern and central Europe as well as most of Asia.
The disease, which is not a health threat to humans but is almost always fatal in pigs, has depleted pork supplies in many areas, and has been cited as a major reason for recent increases in the price of food worldwide.
Since its discovery in China in August of 2018, “more than 50 percent of Chinese pigs have been culled or died with African Swine Fever,” Dr. Richt said. He noted that China once produced 50 percent of pork in the world, 700 million pigs a year. “This is not happening any more.”
The biggest problem, he said, is there is no vaccine, and no treatment for this disease. “The only way to control ASF is bio-security and culling of animals.”
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is the world’s oldest and leading organization of researchers into animal-related diseases.
Dr. Roman Pogranichniy, a virologist and faculty member in Kansas State University’s Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology, and section head of the Virology and Serology Laboratory (http://www.ksdl.org), also lectured at OIE. He discussed recent efforts to train veterinarians and pig producers in Ukraine – where the disease is widespread – on ASF mitigation and control strategies to prevent disease from spreading and from being introduced into pig production facilities.
October 4, 2019
CEEZAD conducts lectures and research during Asia trip
Dr. Juergen Richt has returned from a two week-long visit to Asia designed to give lectures and combat the spread of animal diseases including African Swine Fever (ASF).
Dr. Juergen Richt, CEEZAD’s director, conducted lectures and field tests in China, Mongolia and South Korea.
Dr. Richt said ASF, which made its way to China in August of 2018, has caused the loss “of a significant portion of the Chinese swine population.” China has been home to the world’s largest pork industry in recent years. He spoke about progress in CEEZAD’s effort to control the spread of ASF using vaccines and point-of-need diagnostic techniques during lectures in Shanghai and Nanchang in China, Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, and Seoul in South Korea.
Dr. Richt was told that pig prices were three times higher in China now than they had been during a previous visit about a year ago. Dr. Richt said that was due to steep declines in Chinese pork production, which also affected sales of sow feed and swine vaccines significantly.
In Mongolia, Dr. Richt was joined by another CEEZAD member – Dashzeveg Bold, a CEEZAD graduate research assistant from Mongolia – and conducted field research in the Gobi Desert. That research included collecting blood and nasal swab samples from 90 young camels, and their diagnostic examination for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).
Dr. Richt mentioned that all the drawn samples proved negative for either disease, although some of the laboratory testing for MERS remains ongoing.
In Mongolia, the camel sampling and testing efforts were conducted in the field using mobile diagnostic PCR machines (Biomeme Franklin). Then, at the Central Veterinary Laboratory in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, CEEZAD conducted additional research on ASF, Classical Swine Fever and FMD. There the team was able to amplify and sequence parts of the genomes of all three viruses from infected samples using the portable PCR machine and the portable next generation sequencing device (MinION Nanopore).
In Korea, Dr. Richt met with swine producers, veterinarians and veterinary diagnosticians. Dr. Richt also lectured on ASF at Konkuk University, South Korea’s major veterinary medicine research university. Since identification of the ASF virus in South Korea on Sept. 20, the country’s pig producers and veterinary authorities have been working to limit its spread.
September 19, 2019
Where in the world is CEEZAD?
August 27, 2019
CEEZAD director offers expertise to DHS security program
The director of CEEZAD served as a subject matter expert for a Department of Homeland Security exercise designed to test DHS’s ability to utilize best scientific practices for Rift Valley Fever. Dr. Juergen Richt provided expertise for the Department’s Science Advisory Guide for Emergencies (SAGE), which provides up-to-date scientific and technical support for homeland security threats, emergencies and major disasters.
Dr. Richt’s specific area of involvement concerned the security threat posed to the nation’s agricultural sector by Rift Valley Fever, a disease of ruminants and humans. Much of CEEZAD’s focus has been on developing a safe, efficacious and DIVA-compatible vaccine for the disease.
Dr. Richt worked in concert with Cody Gregory, SAGE Program Manager for the department’s Science and Technology Directorate, and led a discussion on the potential security implications posed by RVF.
https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2019/08/27/snapshot-st-international-partners-establish-best-practices
June 17, 2019
Ten Talented Students Successfully Complete CEEZAD’s BSL-3 Summer Training Program
CEEZAD’s recently concluded Summer Training Program gave 10 promising students a chance to explore the full range of professional opportunities available to them as they progress along their career paths. The program provided students with hands-on experience in high-containment laboratory situations and acquainted them with recent developments in the field of veterinary infectious disease studies.
The BSL-3 Summer Training Program is an annual exercise in which CEEZAD gathers experts in the fields of biosecurity, virology, pathobiology and related fields in order to educate promising students who are interested or already involved in veterinary research in those fields.
Most of the program takes place at the Biosecurity Research Institute (BRI) at Kansas State University. This included one week of training at the BRI into procedures that are used to ensure safety in a BSL3 environment. Additionally, the program featured visits to various industry, business and educational sites within the Greater Kansas City Animal Health Corridor. Participants visited four Kansas City area firms involved in various aspects of the veterinary health industry: Midwest Research Institute (MRI Global), Bayer Animal Health, Citoxlab, and Merck Animal Health.
The participants, most of them DVM/PhD students, are involved in the study of various infectious diseases. Their names, schools and current majors are:
Sean Stapleton, Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, DVM student; Katelyn Haydett, Michigan State University, DVM student; Megan Toms, Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, DVM/MPH student; Jonathan Teeple, Michigan State University, DVM/MPH student; Dana Stewart, Michigan State University DVM/MPH student; Grayson Walker, North Carolina State University, DVM/PHD student; Madeline Butterfield, University of South Dakota, Kansas State University DVM student; Andrea Ayala, University of Georgia, PhD student in comparative biomedical sciences; Elsa Sanabria, North Carolina State University, DVM/MPH student; Sarah Murray, Texas A&M, PhD student.
At the end of this year’s session, the students said the two-week experience broadened their awareness of the numerous career opportunities available to them. In several cases, the program also deepened or clarified their interest in particular aspects of veterinary research. “It showed me a lot of different pathways – research, industry, biodefense,” remarked Megan Toms.
Katelyn Haydett said the experience opened her eyes to the wide range of ways in which veterinary research is conducted. “I see that you can go into the government sector, the private sector, or the academic sector,” she said.
The program concluded with two days of presentations by some of the world’s leading researchers into veterinary health. The presenters included Dr. Koos Coetzer of the University of Pretoria, South Africa; Dr. Greg Gray of Duke University; Dr. Cyril Gay of the US Department of Agriculture; Dr. Alonso Clavijo of the National Centre for Animal Diseases in Canada; Dr. Anton Gerilovych of the Institute for Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine in Ukraine; and Dr. Young Lyoo of Konkuk University in South Korea.
Dana Stewart was among those placing particular value on her exposure to BSL3 training requirements. “Coming in I had no experience with any of the BSL levels,” she said. “I got a hands-on opportunity to work in that kind of environment.” Madeline Butterfield, who is beginning her veterinary medicine studies at Kansas State this fall, said the workshop gave her “insight into what science careers look like.”
Sean Stapleton said one of the most valuable aspects for him was awareness of the need for people “to work in this area…to take on the challenge, to put up with the obstacles.”
Dr. Juergen Richt, CEEZAD’s director, expressed great satisfaction with the training the students received and with their participation in it. He also said the event laid a strong foundation for the continued development of a veterinary research workforce leading up to the anticipated opening of the National Bio and Agro-defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan.
“The students were highly interactive and inquisitive,” Dr. Richt remarked. He added that “we are looking forward to next year and to training the future workforce of veterinary researchers to meet the needs of facilities such as the NBAF.”
July 25, 2019
CEEZAD scientists take on a significant national security threat
When people think of threats to the nation’s security, those thoughts generally involve mass-casualty scenarios.
Yet one potential significant national security threat could involve natural or intentional introduction of a virus that can’t take a single human life. It could, however, devastate one of the most important segments of the nation’s food industry.
Scientists at the Kansas State University-based Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases are researching methods to ensure that never happens.
The threat is from African Swine Fever (ASF), a disease that is endemic in swine populations in various parts of the world, including Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. In 2018 the disease was for the first time discovered in China, the world’s largest pork producing nation.
"Within 12 years of the virus emerging in the Republic of Georgia, African swine fever has spread throughout most of Eastern Europe and across the entire continent of Asia into China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea and Cambodia," said Daniel Madden, a graduate research assistant with the CEEZAD-affiliated Richt Lab who researches the virus. "It is very likely that future outbreaks will occur in areas that have never seen this disease before; and we must be prepared."
Although ASF cannot be passed to humans, the economic implications for swine industries in nations where the disease has been found have been substantial. And given the widespread use of pigs as a source of food, medicines and financial investment, implications for the economy of any nation where ASF is introduced can also be significant.
Dr. Juergen Richt, CEEZAD’s director and a widely respected researcher on the topic of ASF, noted that wholesale pork prices in China are already 20 percent higher than they were a year ago, before ASF was discovered in that country.
With specific respect to the U.S. food industry, the concern is two-fold: that ASF could be introduced inadvertently, or that it could be introduced deliberately. Obviously, American Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel are alert to the threat and take measures to prevent the introduction of ASF here. High biosecurity standards are in place at the nation’s land borders, ports and airports, designed to minimize the threat of either accidental or deliberate introduction of this dangerous viral agent.
Clearly, it’s asking a lot of our CBP personnel to ensure against the introduction of something as small as a virus. Dr. Richt characterized the risk of further spread of the virus into currently unaffected areas as high, mainly through movement of contaminated pork, pork products, infected pigs and wild boar, or through contaminated vehicles, fomites, or feed.
There is no commercially available vaccine, in part due to the complex nature of the virus. Development of such a vaccine is one focus of work at CEEZAD. Those same researchers are also developing rapid diagnostic tests that could detect viral antigens, antibodies or DNA to the virus so if the disease does show up in the U.S., it can be identified quickly and hopefully stopped before it spreads widely.
April 3, 2019
CEEZAD research is focus of article in March issue of Vaccines
A recent vaccine study conducted by researchers at the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases (CEEZAD) was highlighted on the cover in the March issue of "Vaccines", an international peer-reviewed journal focusing on laboratory and clinical research.
The article’s co-authors are Sun-Young Sunwoo, Daniel Perez-Nunez, Igor Morozov, Elena Sanchez, Natasha Gaudreault, Jessie Trujillo, Lina Mur, Marissa Nogal, Daniel Madden, Kinga Urbanek, In Joong Kim, Wenjun Ma, Yolanda Revilla and Juergen Richt. All are either CEEZAD researchers or collaborators from CBMSO in Madrid, Spain.
The study focuses on CEEZAD efforts to develop a vaccine for African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV), a mostly fatal disease of swine for which there is no commercially available vaccine. Recent outbreaks of the virus in Trans-Caucasus countries, Russia, Eastern Europe, Belgium, Vietnam and China highlight the urgent need to develop efficacious vaccines against ASFV.
In the article’s abstract, the authors note that they have previously evaluated the immunogenicity of a vaccination strategy designed to test various combinations of ASFV antigens encoded by DNA plasmids and recombinant proteins with the aim to activate both humoral and cellular immunity. Based on those results, this most recent study was designed to test the efficacy of a combined DNA-protein vaccine strategy using a cocktail of the most immunogenic antigens against virulent ASFV challenge.
The results point to a putative immune enhancement mechanism involved in ASFV pathogenesis that warrants further investigation. The authors said the pilot study provides insights for the selection of appropriate combinations of ASFV antigens for the development of a rationally-designed, safe, and efficacious vaccine for ASF.
March 28, 2019
Dr. Juergen A. Richt, director of CEEZAD, explains recent findings of a research study developing a vaccine for Rift Valley Fever Virus vaccine during FRONTIERS, a University of Kansas-sponsored day committed to highlighting research on recent regional laboratory discoveries in the field of medical science. Dr. Richt explained the major findings of the CEEZAD research program (including Rift Valley Fever, Avian Flu and African Swine Fever) during the event, held during the last week of March in Kansas City.
March 7, 2019
CEEZAD’s director delivers keynote address at Gordon Research Conference
The director of the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases delivered the keynote address at this week’s Chemical and Biological Terrorism Gordon Research Conference held in Ventura, Calif.
Dr. Juergen Richt addressed conferees Sunday on the topic, “Rift Valley Fever: Development of Mitigation Strategies in Target Animals.” In his address, he discussed research efforts underway at the Richt Lab to develop target animal models for Rift Valley Fever and safe and efficacious vaccines. One focus of his presentation was familiarization of participants with ongoing research efforts at the Kansas State University-based Biosecurity Research Institute.
Rift Valley Fever is a vector-borne disease in ruminants, also capable of affecting humans. It is most commonly found in eastern and southern Africa and the Arabian peninsula.
During a Monday session, Dr. Richt also led a discussion on agro-terrorism, which are terrorist acts intended to disrupt or damage a country's agricultural system, especially the use of a biological agent against crops or livestock.
The conference, which has attracted biosecurity researchers from around the world, has been held every other year since 1998. Its purpose is to focus on the application of cutting edge research and apply that research to the development of new anti-terrorism tools. Major conference topics include novel imaging techniques that follow host response to chemical and biological insults, novel approaches to countering antimicrobial resistance, new detection technologies and the integration of understanding the problems and advances in agriculture bioterrorism.
March 3, 2019
Chronic Wasting Disease Spreading in Kansas
Salina radio station KSAL is reporting that the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism has collected and tested samples from 360 deer, 37 of which were confirmed positive for Chronic Wasting Disease.
The 37 confirmed positives came from deer taken in Cheyenne, Rawlins, Decatur, Norton, Phillips, Smith, Thomas, Sheridan, Gove, Rooks, Osborne, Scott, Lane, Hamilton, Haskell, Hodgeman, Ford, Edwards, Stafford, Reno, and Pratt counties. While most positives are still coming from northwest Kansas, the disease has also been found in counties to the south and east.
CWD infects members of the deer family, including whitetail and mule deer, elk and moose.
Although research about the disease is ongoing, currently there is no cure, vaccine or other biological method of preventing CWD. And while recent news has reported a potential vaccine based on research that indicated the disease may be caused by spiroplasma bacteria, attempts to duplicate that research have been unsuccessful. Currently, the only tool to prevent the spread of CWD is to restrict the transport of deer and deer carcasses.
While CWD is always fatal to infected deer and elk, humans have never been known to contract the disease.
CWD is a progressive, fatal disease that results in small holes developing in the brain, giving it a sponge-like appearance under the microscope. While deer may carry the disease for up to 2 years without showing any outward signs, in latter stages, a deer may exhibit decreased brain function and display a droopy head, staggering, loss of appetite, and a lack of response to people. It is advised that hunters who take deer from areas where CWD has been found have their deer tested whether or not they exhibited any signs.
February 16, 2019
Director of CEEZAD recognized as 2018 AAAS Fellow at ceremony in Washington D.C.
On February 16, Dr. Juergen Richt was pinned by the American Association for the Advancement of Science at their annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
A Regents distinguished professor and the director of Kansas State University's Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases (CEEZAD), Dr. Richt was selected for his distinguished research and advisory contributions to the field of zoonotic diseases - particularly for his pioneering role in the development of the One Health paradigm.
Dr. Richt is a veterinary microbiologist who has worked with multiple agents of zoonotic potential, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy or mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease, animal influenza viruses, Rift Valley Fever virus, Borna virus and other emerging pathogens. He has been published extensively, with authorship or co-authorship of over 200 per-reviewed articles.
Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon association members by their peers. The association's fellowship program recognizes individuals whose efforts toward advancing science applications are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.
Out of the 416 fellows elected this year, seven were faculty at veterinary colleges in the U.S. (including Dr. Richt). There was also an additional fellow from Kansas State University – Dr. Jame Guikema, a late professor of biology and University administrator.
Read more about the 2018 veterinary fellows here:
https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/190215n.aspx