Protecting U.S. agriculture and public health

• Barbara Valent and Jim Stack's plant pathology team is continuing its work on the fungal disease wheat blast. The project has been based at the BRI since 2009. They are also beginning work on Raythayibacter toxicus, a bacterium transmitted by parasites to certain grasses. In 2019, Valent and Stack made substantial progress on three fronts in their wheat blast program. Learn more about Barbara Valent and Jim Stack.
• Giovana Cruppe completed her doctoral research at BRI investigating and identifying potential new sources of genetic resistance to the wheat blast pathogen from wild wheat relatives. Javier Kiyuna completed his master's degree research at BRI determining the limits of detection for the wheat blast pathogen in infected seed lots as a function of PCR sensitivity and seed sampling methods. They will both continue working with the wheat blast team; Giovana as a research assistant professor at K-State and Javier as a field research coordinator in Bolivia. On the third front, our genomics team published a high-profile paper in the journal PLoS Genetics that describes a novel mechanism of genome variability in the wheat blast fungus. That is, dynamic crosstalk between the ends of fungal core chromosomes and dispensable supernumerary mini-chromosomes contributes to the pathogen’s genome plasticity and ability to evade disease control strategies in the field.

• Jishu Shi's group is developing countermeasures to control three high consequence infectious diseases of pigs. African swine fever, or ASF research entails developing novel vaccines and also a diagnostic assay that can differentiate pigs infected with wild type virus from those vaccinated with experimental vaccine. Antiviral reagents that can be used to inactivate ASF virus are also being evaluated. Classical swine fever, or CSF, research includes developing and validating a unique method of differentiating between vaccinated and infected pigs. A novel vaccine platform that will induce high level anti-CSFV immunity in pigs is under development. Lastly, the team is developing and testing novel vaccines for high pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS. Learn more about Jishu Shi.
• USDA-ARS scientists at the Arthropod-Borne Animal Diseases Research Unit are confirming the effectiveness of a Rift Valley fever, RVF, vaccine for sheep and cattle and susceptibility of white-tailed deer to infection by the virus. An efficacy trial conducted in 2018 in mice for the RVFV vaccine is now approved by USDA-CVB. This represents a major milestone toward licensing the vaccine. Multiple studies have been conducted in swine to evaluate various subunit and modified live virus vaccine candidates for African Swine Fever (ASF). Point of Need (PON) portable PCR devices for ASFV and RVFV and for an ASF antigen lateral flow test are being validated. Several studies have been conducted to evaluate an antiviral compound against influenza viruses in a chicken influenza model. Fifteen peer-reviewed manuscripts were published in 2019 describing research on ASFV, RVFV, animal influenza viruses, Schmallenberg virus and Vesicular Stomatitis virus.

Dana Vanlandingham's team demonstrated that North American swine are highly susceptible to Japanese encephalitis virus and that North American mosquitoes can transmit the virus. A USDA-supported study in sheep evaluated a novel Rift Valley fever virus vaccine — provided by collaborators in the United Kingdom. Also, SARS-CoV-2 virus cannot infect and be transmitted by three important species of mosquitoes.

Her group has also been involved in evaluating Zika virus vaccine candidates, with one DNA vaccine candidate in clinical trials. Six peer-reviewed articles describing recent studies have been published. Productive collaborations have continued with other academic and industry partners on equine encephalitis viruses and inactivation of West Nile virus in blood components.

Learn more about Dana Vanlandingham.

• A study at the Kansas State University Biosecurity Research Institute is the first to confirm that SARS-CoV-2 cannot be transmitted to people by mosquitoes. The study has been published by Nature Scientific Reports.
• Juergen Richt’s team from the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases, or CEEZAD, and the Center on Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, or CEZID, had recent research demonstrate that cats can be infected and shed SARS-CoV-2 but do not develop disease. Learn more about Juergen Richt.

The National Agricultural Biosecurity Center, or NABC, team published two critical papers analyzing swine movement amongst farms by which mitigation and planning strategies against the spread of African swine fever virus can be enhanced. This work is particularly timely as the global spread of ASF has become very prominent in the news.

• The National Agricultural Biosecurity Center (NABC) contributes to and accesses a vast network of interdisciplinary research and resources in areas such as animal diseases, foodborne pathogens, plant infectious agents, emergency management, and environmental systems changes impacting agriculture, food, and One Health. NABC is dedicated to increasing public awareness of agro-terrorism and developing solutions for improving agricultural and food production safeguards utilizing systems process analysis and risk assessments.

• The NABC team has flexed to support campus wide COVID response and recovery activities. This effort has helped guide the formation of a standing Incident Management Team (IMT) to examine solution scenarios for various issues impacting campus. NABC provided logistics for the campus wide effort at bidirectional procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for both the State of Kansas as well as K-State. NABC performed a virtual table top exercise with a broad variety of campus elements to dialogue through a predetermine hypothetical set to begin the fall semester and campus reopening. Longer term with these efforts, NABC will provide capabilities for an institutional recovery team to analyze methods and topics to build a resilient systems architecture for the university’s future.

• NABC continues to work on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funded “Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office (CWMD)-Food, Agriculture, and Veterinary Defense (FAV-D) Division readiness project,” expanding to a collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories to develop a national Mission Needs Assessment for the Federal Government; an “Animal Disease Response Training (ADRT) adapted to a virtual delivery;” and a couple of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) awards to work with the Kansas Division of Emergency Management (KDEM) and the Kansas Department of Agriculture (KDA) on projects under the 2018 Farm Bill delivering results for the National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program (NADPRP).

Learn more about the National Agricultural Biosecurity Center.

Randall Phebus, Sara Gragg, and their team finalized five years of research sponsored by USDA NIFAto validate and characterize numerous USDA-approved antimicrobial intervention technologies for treating carcasses, fabricated cuts and trim to control food-borne pathogens, such as Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in commercial beef processing operations.

This research is immediately relevant to the meat industry to assist in food safety decision-making and to comply with pathogen control programs in beef safety. Findings from these beef studies are now being applied in large-scale BRI studies to fresh pork processing to bring these scientifically validated food safety technologies into use for enhanced control of Salmonella and STEC in pork products.

Learn more about Randall Phebus.