With funding from the Minnesota legislature, CIDRAP’s chronic wasting disease (CWD) program has initiated a collaboration with national and international experts to draft comprehensive, authoritative guidance for a spillover to humans or non-cervid production animals. CIDRAP’s approach is unique in that no other governmental agency, organization, or academic center has included all of these disciplines to address risk of a CWD spillover event.
CIDRAP has convened five working groups of 70 leading CWD experts for this contingency planning effort. Ten of these experts are providing additional guidance by serving as cochairs of the groups, which specialize in wildlife health and management, public health, human medicine, prion biology and diagnostics, veterinary medicine, and agriculture science.
These groups are discussing the state of disease knowledge and identifying the actions required should spillover occur. Based on these discussions, the CWD program will develop, refine, and share a blueprint for preparedness and response planning with stakeholders.
Chronic Wasting Disease Working Group Subject Areas and Co-chairs
Human medicine and public health surveillance, epidemiology, laboratory capacity, planning and response
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Brian Appleby, MD | Director, National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center |Professor, Departments of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Pathology, Case Western Reserve University University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center
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Lawrence Schonberger, MD, MPH | Assistant Director for Public Health | Chief, Prion and Public Health Office, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Cervid and production animal surveillance, laboratory capacity, planning and response
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Jason Bartz, PhD | Professor and Chair, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology | Associate Dean, Academic and Faculty Affairs, Creighton University
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Sabine Gilch, PhD | Professor, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine | UCalgary Research Excellence Chair, University of Calgary
Prion disease diagnostics
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Byron Caughey, PhD | Chief, TSE/Prion Biochemistry Section, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health
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Glenn Telling, PhD | Principal Investigator, The Telling Lab | Director, CSU Prion Research Center | Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University
Carcass and contaminated item disposal
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Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, PhD, MS | Professor and Chair, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering | Donald R. Voelte, Jr. and Nancy A. Keegan Chair of Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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Debbie McKenzie, PhD | Professor, Faculty of Science - Department of Biological Sciences | Associate Dean, Graduate, Faculty of Science, Dean's Office, Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases, University of Alberta
Wildlife health and conservation
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J. Russ Mason, PhD | Michigan DNR Executive in Residence, Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Michigan State University
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Colin Gillin, DVM, MS | State Wildlife Veterinarian, Wildlife Health and Population Lab, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Working group members
- Joseph Abrams, PhD | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Marcelo Barria Matus, PhD | University of Edinburgh
- Sonja Best, PhD | National Institutes of Health
- Stephanie Booth, DPhil | Public Health Agency of Canada
- Michael Busch, MD, PhD | Vitalant Research Institute and UC San Francisco
- Larisa Cervenakova, MD, PhD | Senior Biomedical Consultant
- Stacy Holzbauer, DVM, MPH | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Minnesota Department of Health
- Richard Knight, MD, FRCP | University of Edinburgh
- Ruth Lynfield, MD | Minnesota Department of Health
- Ryan Maddox, PhD | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Rodrigo Morales, PhD | The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
- Brent Race, DVM | National Institutes of Health
- Rachael Straver, DVM, MPH | Texas Department of State Health Services
- Justin Greenlee, DVM, PhD, Dip. ACVP | USDA Agricultural Research Service
- Lucia Hunt, MPA | Minnesota Department of Agriculture
- Juan Carlos Espinosa Martín, Sc.D | Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria
- Doug McArthur | White Earth Reservation
- Gordon Mitchell, DVM, PhD | Canadian Food Inspection Agency
- Rodrigo Morales, PhD | The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
- Tracy Nichols, PhD | USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
- Joni Scheftel, DVM, MPH, DACVPM | Minnesota Department of Health
- Terry Spraker, DVM, PhD, ACVP | Colorado State University
- Waqas Tahir, PhD, MPhil, DVM | Canadian Food Inspection Agency, World Organization for Animal Health
- Tiffany Wolf, DVM, PhD | Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach
- Mark Zabel, PhD | Colorado State University
- Olivier Andreoletti, PhD | UMR Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique /École Nationale Vétérinaire de Toulouse
- Travis Bartnick | Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission
- Sylvie Benestad, PhD | Norwegian Veterinary Institute
- Stephanie Booth, DPhil | Public Health Agency of Canada
- Juaquín Castilla, PhD | CIC bioGUNE
- David Harris, MD, PhD | Boston University
- Allison Kraus, PhD | National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center
- Peter Larsen, PhD | Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach
- Aaron Lehmkuhl, DVM, MS, DACVP | USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratories
- Jennifer Malmberg, MA, DVM, PhD, DACVP | USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
- Candace Mathiason, PhD | Colorado State University
- Gordon Mitchell, DVM, PhD | Canadian Food Inspection Agency
- Christina Orrù - Groveman, PhD | National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
- Brent Race, DVM | NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratories
- Hermann Schatzl, MD, PhD | University of Calgary
- Inga Zerr, MD | Georg-August University Göttingen
- Wenquan Zou, MD, PhD | The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University
- Morton Barlaz, PhD, PE | North Carolina State University
- David Benke | Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
- Souta Calling Last, MIM | Indigenous Vision
- Gary Flory | G.A. Flory Consulting LLC
- Christopher Johnson, PhD | United States Geological Survey
- Timm Konold, DrMedVet, PhD, MRCVS | UK Animal and Plant Health Agency
- Alsu Kuznetsova, PhD | University of Alberta
- Stuart Lichtenberg, PhD | Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach
- Qi Yuan, PhD | Creighton University
- Michelle Carstensen, PhD | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
- Sonja Christensen, PhD | Michigan State University
- Matthew Dunfee | Wildlife Management Institute, CWD Alliance
- Dwayne Etter, PhD | Michigan Department of Natural Resources
- John Fischer, DVM, PhD | UGA Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study
- Tricia Fry, PhD | Midwest Association for Fish and Wildlife Agencies
- Scott Hull, PhD | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
- Bill Moritz, PhD | Wildlife Management Institute
- Nick Pinizzotto, MA | National Deer Association
- Kelly Straka, DVM, MPH | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources