INCREASING SAMPLE CAPACITY THROUGH AUTOMATION

Summary:The Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (LADDL) is fully accredited byAAVLD and a member of FDA's CVM Vet-LIRN and USDA's NAHLN. LADDL is one of fourwhole genome sequencing laboratories selected by Vet-LIRN to participate in a pilotproject using Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) to monitor antimicrobial resistance inzoonotic pathogens. This work will support FDA's mission of protecting the public healthby providing new ways for identifying and tracing pathogens during food-borneoutbreaks. The goals of this cooperative agreement are to 1. Increase the testingvolume of WGS surveillance samples from infected animals and animal feeds 2.Provide data in a more efficient and timely manner to aid in quickly solving foodborneoutbreaks 3. Generate data for building reference databases to aid investigators inidentifying cases involved in an outbreak and tracking potential sources ofcontamination.