ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University's expertise in plant and animal diseases has been enlisted in the war on bioterrorism, with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program to bolster food and agricultural homeland security protections.

Part of the $2.1 million channeled through New York state by the USDA will help establish facilities in both Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and College of Veterinary Medicine. The facilities will join a network of laboratories sited strategically throughout the nation to permit rapid and accurate diagnosis of animal-disease threats and to assist states in improving their capabilities to detect plant pests and diseases, according to the USDA announcement of the $43.5 million appropriation to the states.

The USDA allocation to New York state was announced May 30 in Albany by U.S. Agriculture Under-secretary for Food Safety Elsa Murano, who said that $1.65 million was for New York's part of the rapid detection and diagnostics network, $200,000 for plant pest and disease detection, $176,596 for animal disease response and $77,771 for animal disease surveillance. Not all of the New York state allocation will come to Cornell.

Also participating in the Albany announcement were New York Agriculture Commissioner Nathan L. Rudgers and Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine Dean Donald F. Smith.

In Cornell's New York State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, Director Alfonso Torres said the animal-health diagnostic program here would become a satellite laboratory to a USDA-designated core laboratory. But exactly what role the Cornell veterinary lab would play will not be determined, Torres said, until the completion of a 90-day planning process among the federal, state and university units in the network.

Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Associate Dean William E. Fry said: "Cornell has considerable expertise in dealing with exotic plant pests, and we study some of them under quarantine conditions. We also have expertise to identify some of those global pests that might be used by agricultural terrorists. This research will focus on those organisms."Speaking at the Albany announcement of the USDA funding, Dean Smith said veterinary public-health endeavors are a crucial component of the human public-health infrastructure.

"More effective integration of existing components of the public-health infrastructure with the veterinary diagnostic, surveillance and response infrastructure is not only sensible," he said, "it is essential to the creation of an effective overall defense against bioterrorism."

Said Commissioner Rudgers: "Even before the events of Sept. 11, we have watched other parts of the world struggle with disease outbreaks, and we have learned the importance of a top-notch biosecurity infrastructure. The funds [announced by the USDA on May 30] will help New York enhance its existing integrated biosecurity infrastructure to not only better detect and respond to emergencies, but also to promote good on-farm management, which focuses on prevention. Today's announcement is the first in what I hope is a series of steps between Cornell University, the state and our federal partners, and I thank the Bush administration, USDA Secretary Veneman and Under-secretary Murano for providing these valuable resources."

-30-