Purdue Prof gets $1M for Rapid Test for African Swine Fever

Mar 08, 2022

A Purdue University researcher has landed a $1 million grant to boost his work on a rapid test for detecting African swine fever.

The funding for Mohit Verma, an assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering, was included in the U.S. Farm Bill to help enhance the nation’s ability to develop rapid tests for high-consequence diseases, the Journal & Courier reported.

Verma is collaborating with two other Purdue researchers to develop a portable paper-strip test for African swine fever, which he calls “a devastating disease.”

Verma said that when an outbreak of African swine fever hit farms in China a few years ago “it wiped out 50% of the country’s pig population."

Developing a rapid test that can be done in the field for the virus that causes the fever is important because “hours, even minutes, matter in containing it,” he said.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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