Wichita — A long-proposed $40 million biosecurity research facility at Kansas State University has new impetus after the terrorist attacks: anthrax and fears of an assault on the nation's food supply.
"The feeling is this is being positively received again because of the great need. Let's say we are hopeful," said Ron Trewyn, vice provost for research at Kansas State.
A bond initiative to finance the facility will go before the state Legislature this session.
The facility envisioned by researchers would deal with plant and animal diseases and would include the nation's first contained slaughter facility designed for research into certain dangerous food production pathogens.
It could handle so-called Level 3 organisms, just a step below the most dangerous pathogens, such as Ebola, that fall into Level 4 status, said Jerry Jaax, associate vice provost for research compliance.
Kansas State already conducts research on Level 1 and 2 pathogens, but the higher biosecurity capability is needed to handle more serious plant and animal diseases, most of which fall into the Level 3 category, he said.
Agricultural threats
Some organisms that could be studied at a Level 3 facility include anthrax, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, plague, foot-and-mouth disease and Karnal bunt, among others.
Beyond homeland defense, many of these pathogens are a potential threat as emerging diseases, he said.
It remains to be seen, he said, whether foot-and-mouth disease would be one of those studied at the facility.
"Clearly foot-and-mouth disease is one of the ones we are most concerned about, but there are some politics associated with foot-and-mouth because it is not currently found in this country.
"We would concentrate on diseases endemic to this country of which there are many," he said.
Karnal bunt fears
Among those of greatest concern to Kansas farmers is Karnal bunt, a wheat fungus which was found for the first time last summer in north Texas.
Kansas State is taking the lead in developing a national Karnal bunt initiative to ratchet up research on a global scale, said Robert Zeigler, professor of plant pathology at Kansas State.
The university hopes to breed Karnal bunt-resistant wheat, but most of the research so far has been done in Mexico and India where spring wheat is grown, not the hard red winter wheat grown in Kansas.
There are close to a dozen plant pathogens on government lists that could be used as potential terrorist weapons against U.S. crops, Zeigler said.
The thrust of research now at Kansas State's plant pathology department is in developing broad-spectrum, durable resistance generally to plant pathogens in cereal grains rather than resistance to individual pathogens.
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