The ?Leprosy Research Support and Maintenance of an Armadillo Colony ? Post Genome Era? interagency agreement helps to establish and maintain a colony of wild caught armadillos that are infected with M. leprae. Infected organs and tissues are used to develop and make available standardized research reagents to investigators worldwide. This contract also includes studies to optimize infection of armadillos for maximum yield, early identification of animals that were successfully infected, and studies to assess the timecourse and location of infection to create additional samples for disease studies. The contract also maintains the mouse footpad model and other methods to amplify M. leprae bacteria from human specimens before they can be used to infect armadillos.
