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The Animal Disease Modeling Lab (ADM)
Located in the Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance (CADMS), the ADM lab focuses on US based disease modeling and is led by Dr. Tim Carpenter. Currently the lab is researching various animal diseases, predominantly foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and avian influenza (AI). However, work is also being conducted on brucellosis in Greater Yellowstone National Park, toxoplasmosis in the southern sea otter, West Nile Virus, and autism in humans.
The focus of the ADM lab is to predict the spread of animal diseases if they were to enter the US. In conjunction with this, various control strategies are tested in order to evaluate their effectiveness and economic efficiency. Currently our major project is modeling FMD. Starting in 1997 with a PhD project, the lab began working to develop a simulation model that can predict how an outbreak of FMD might spread and best be controlled. Initially this model was developed for a 3-county region of California, but with increased funding, the efforts have expanded so that the current version can simulate the spread throughout the entire state of California. Work is underway to increase the scope of the model to a national level.
If you are a livestock producer in the US and would be interested in helping us develop this model by sharing some information about your farming practices please visit our US Livestock Disease Survey. We hope the results will be beneficial to livestock producers, the economy and of course the animal population in the US.
Expertise in the ADM lab includes the following: agricultural economics, veterinary medicine, computer science, engineering, epidemiology, ecology, evolutionary biology, geographic information systems (GIS), mathematics, risk analysis, and statitics. The ADM lab is funded by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. University of California Davis - School of Veterinary Medicine, US Deparment of Agriculture, US Department of Homeland Security, Director of Central Intelligence, National Institute of Health, and the National Science Foundation.