US research on zoonotic and food safety receive grants

The Universities in Kansas and Texas will each receive US$12 million for zoonotic disease research, while the Minnesota University will receive about US$20 million for research to improve food safety.

The Department of Homeland Security announced in mid-February that Kansas State University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Minnesota will receive the funding over the next six years.

The Kansas and Texas universities are lead institutions for the DHS Center of Excellence for Zoonotic and Animal Disease Defense, and the Minnesota school will lead the DHS Center of Excellence for Food Security.

The Zoonotic and Animal Disease Defense centre's research goals are developing vaccines for diseases with "potentially catastrophic public health and economic implications", developing rapid diagnostic methods to identify such diseases, modeling and simulating the spread and impact of such diseases and management tools, and developing education programs for animal disease defense, DHS information states.

Meanwhile, the Food Security center's research goals include providing ways to protect food from risks or attacks, modeling adverse event risks and consequences, and improving strategies for protecting food supplies.