NCDC234: North American interdisciplinary chronic wasting disease consortium
(Multistate Research Coordinating Committee and Information Exchange Group)
Status: Inactive/Terminating
Date of Annual Report: 01/10/2020
Report Information
Period the Report Covers: 09/01/2018 - 09/01/2019
Participants
Brief Summary of Minutes
(See attachment below for meeting agenda)
Contact: Dr. Sonja Christensen; chris625@msu.edu
Funded by the Michigan DNR and Michigan State University Wildlife Disease Initiative.
Awarded Grant: “Multistate CWD Strategic Planning Initiative”
CWD Research Consortium Meeting Brief
Led by Dr. Sonja Christensen
Boone and Crockett Quantitative Wildlife Center
Michigan State University
September 9-10, 2019
Overview: On September 9-10, 2019, the newly formed CWD Research Consortium conducted its inaugural meeting to coordinate and collaborate on CWD research across multiple disciplines and thematic areas. Our meeting had a specific goal of informing current and future research efforts with needs specific to state and provincial CWD managers. This meeting also served as the first business meeting of the active NCDC234 multistate project led by University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University. Our objectives for this meeting were to:
(1) Identify common research themes for coordinated action across our interdisciplinary team.
(2) Identify avenues to improve communication between research and management within and among states throughout the region.
(3) Identify sources and means to garner funding to support more diverse and effective research and management efforts.
(4) Develop a coordinated outreach approach for disseminating research results across states and agencies.
Highlights: We gathered 46 participants representing research from 14 universities, 7 state agencies, 1 province, 1 NGO, and 3 federal agencies. Participants felt this was a critical effort that needed to continue due to the important role research is having on the issue of CWD and the need to communicate knowledge across disciplines and jurisdictions. The diversity of perspectives, balanced with a focused and facilitated process and small group size, was highly effective. We identified implementation and communication plans moving forward. The group also agreed to move forward as a formal organization, in which the multistate project with USDA State Agricultural Experiment Stations (SAES) is one of its main collaborative research arms. The CWD Research Consortium plans to meet annually for a facilitated working meeting; timing to be determined.
Our group successfully united multidisciplinary teams of researchers and partner agencies to develop new research proposals with disease management needs and impacts in mind. Five thematic research areas were prioritized and further developed over the course of the meeting. These were:
(1) Develop an amplification assay using improved sourcing for substrate and implementation of RT-QuIC.
(2) Develop a multistate adaptive management approach for CWD to evaluate management strategies.
(3) Establish and support human dimensions research to better understand values, attitudes, and motivations regarding CWD management.
(4) Establish a national CWD tissue database and repository for transmission and pathogenesis research.
(5) Conduct controlled CWD research using depopulated cervid facilities where CWD has been detected.
Accomplishments
Publications
Impact Statements
Date of Annual Report: 10/08/2020
Report Information
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2019 - 07/01/2020
Participants
Brief Summary of Minutes
See attached file for meeting minutes.