FMD Lab Home Page
The FMD Laboratory
The FMD Laboratory was formed in 2004, primarily for the purpose of developing models and systems for use in diagnosis, prevention, control, eradication, and surveillance of foot-and-mouth disease. The Laboratory developed the FMD BioPortal, which has been operational globally since January 2007. The Laboratory continues in the development of BioPortals and of models for FMD and other animal diseases, including Rift Valley fever, avian influenza, bovine tuberculosis, and vesicular stomatitis. The Laboratory also operates the FMD News and the RVF News (subscription upon request), which provide real-time global news items about these diseases to subscribers. Laboratory personnel include faculty, adjuncts, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, analysts, programmers, and data managers. Interests and expertise include disease expertise, mathematical, Bayesian, and epidemiological modeling, clinical and laboratory diagnostic methods, computer and geographic information systems, infectious disease epidemiology, economics, and international veterinary medicine. The Laboratory is a collaborating member of the Global Foot and Mouth Disease Research Alliance and will soon become a reference center for modeling for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The Laboratory is supported in part by the University of California and the Agricultural Experiment Station, and by various granting or contracting agencies and groups. The Laboratory is under the direction of Dr. Mark Thurmond and Dr. Andres Perez.
Laboratory Objectives
- Capture and disseminate FMD and other animal infectious disease-related data and information.
- Develop FMD and other infectious animal disease databases.
- Develop models for real-time global surveillance systems for animal disease surveillance.
- Develop diagnostic and detection systems for use in surveillance.
- Map regional and global distributions of infectious animal diseases, and of projected risks of disease.
- Develop models to predict disease movement and transmission.
- Develop spatio-temporal and other prediction models for molecular changes in infectious disease agents.
- Develop anomaly detection surveillance system.
- Assess risks of infectious animal diseases associated with management practices and other factors.
- Model competing strategies for biosecurity, control, and eradication.
- Utilize web portal technology to transfer information and models in real time.
For additional information, please contact
Dr. Mark Thurmond (mcthurmond@ucdavis.edu)
Dr. Andrés Perez (amperez@ucdavis.edu)
FMD Lab
Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance
Department of Medicine and Epidemiology
Room 1044 Haring Hall
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of California
Davis, CA 95616 U.S.A.
Lab: (530) 752-5635
Fax: (530) 752-1618