On Oct. 2, 2021, the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine was announced as the home to the new Animal Health and Agro-/Bio-Defense (AHAD) Program through funding from the USDA-Agricultural Research Service. The program focused primarily on diseases affecting economically important domestic animals that pose a threat to public health or impact national security and economic stability locally, nationally and globally.

The partnership was made possible through a collaborative non-assistance cooperative agreement with the USDA-ARS. Initial funding to Auburn is $647,529, with planned funding of more than $2.5 million in the next five years.

Initially, research in the AHAD space will involve a collaborative partnership with scientists in the USDA-ARS through the U.S. National Poultry Research Center in Athens, Georgia. This will allow subject matter experts at Auburn to take advantage of the expertise of peers in the federal space and will enable access to state-of-the-art biosafety level-3 facilities necessary to safely advance solutions for animal health and agro-/bio-defense challenges.

The newly established AHAD program complements and extends ongoing advanced training of next-generation scientists at Auburn who will define the workforce at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas, through the USDA-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Scientist Training Program.

The NBAF will be the first laboratory facility in the U.S. to provide maximum biocontainment (BSL-4) space to enable study of high-consequence zoonotic diseases affecting large livestock and will support pilot-scale development of vaccines and other medical countermeasures designed to mitigate threats to agrosecurity.