Media Advisory – Zoonotic Disease Colloquium

Note to Editors: Media wanting to attend should contact Dell Rae Moellenberg at dellrae.moellenberg@colostate.edu or 970-491-6009 for arrangements.

WHAT:     Experts from several colleges within Colorado State University, an international leader in infectious disease research, will discuss the university’s cutting-edge zoonotic research at a colloquium. Zoonotic researchers will discuss topics ranging from plague, to international trade, to avian influenza surveillance in Colorado.

A keynote address by Dr. Lonnie King, director of the National Center of Zoonotic, Vector-Borne and Enteric Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control, will open the colloquium.  

WHEN/     

WHERE:      8:30 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 30 and 8:30 a.m. – noon Tuesday, Oct 31, at the Fort Collins Hilton, 425 W. Prospect Rd.

DETAILS:     Colorado State University experts will discuss zoonotic disease research. Zoonotic diseases are animal diseases that may spread to humans such as west Nile virus, plague and avian influenza.

     The colloquium is sponsored by Colorado State’s Office of the Vice President for Research and the Colorado State University Research Foundation. Departments with presenters include biomedical sciences, biology, animal sciences, clinical sciences, forest rangeland and watershed stewardship, and microbiology, immunology and pathology. The colloquium brings together faculty and students within the university to further encourage collaboration and communication.

Ten zoonotic disease topics will be covered in addition to the keynote address about the convergence of human and animal health. Those topics are:

–     interactions between climate and plague;

–     molecular and epidemiologic analysis of human tularemia;

–     impact of zoonotic diseases on international trade;

–     Colorado’s avian influenza surveillance program;

–     how influenza transmission crosses species;

–     Sin Nombre virus studies in Colorado since 1994;

–     the role of birds in the history of West Nile virus;

–     Colorado State University’s Animal Population Health Institute equine West Nile virus studies;

–     bats and rabies in urban ecosystems;

–     and dynamics of chronic wasting disease in Colorado mule deer.

Media wanting to attend should contact Dell Rae Moellenberg at dellrae.moellenberg@colostate.edu or 970-491-6009 for arrangements.

-30-