Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal neurological disease affecting deer in Minnesota and elsewhere. It is highly contagious, and the prions causing the disease can be shed by sick and dead deer into the soil, where they remain infectious for years. MSI PI Tiffany Wolf (assistant professor; Veterinary Population Medicine) will lead a team that will optimize soil testing for CWD prions. A story about this grant appears on the College of Veterinary Medicine website: CVM researchers secure $732,000 to further the study of chronic wasting disease in Minnesota.
Professor Wolf is co-director of the Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach, a multidisciplinary center studying human and animal prion diseases. She and her research group are using MSI for a project studying brainworm (Parelaphostrongylus tenuis) infection in Minnesota’s moose population.