The Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (LADDL) is an accredited laboratory with the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnostician. In addition to being an accredited animal disease diagnostic laboratory for the veterinary community, LADDL works through cooperative agreements with the state , the USDA and its interagencies to perform diagnostic surveillance for endemic, targeted, and foreign animal disease to enhance the biosecurity of the food and agricultural industries of the United States The Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (LADDL), is willing and capable to work through cooperative agreement with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network (Vet-LIRN) Cooperative Agreement Program to build a strong animal diagnostic network to provide sample analyses in the event of animal food or drug related illnesses or other large-scale animal/feed emergency events that requires surge capacity testing of diagnostic or animal food samples.
The work performed in this cooperative agreement will increase the capability and capacity for analyses of animal food and drugs that may be adulterated and that are related to illnesses or other large-scale animal food/feed emergency events. The work performed in the cooperative agreement will also provide whole genome sequencing information that can be used for understanding antimicrobial resistance as it relates to human and animal health. Part of this work will help develop computer base technology to share data within large networks for use in both human and animal health. The work performed will also be used to develop standard methods, equipment platforms, analytical worksheets and electronic reporting among laboratories. Laboratories will also be trained and proficiency tested on these methods. Small-scale, short-term method development and method validation will be performed by laboratories. This work will be beneficial and important to both animal health and human health because of the common practices in manufacturing of food products.