Application of Advanced Molecular Characterization Technologies Through the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory Network (VETLAB Network)

In the last few decades, multiple animal and zoonotic diseases affected animal production and health, public health, people’s livelihood, and the global economy. Several examples are the appearance of the bluetongue (BT), Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD), African Swine Fever (ASF), and African Horse Sickness (AHS) in latitudes where they have never appeared before. Moreover, recent outbreaks of avian influenza H5N1, H5N8, and H7N9 all over the world, Ebola in Africa, Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), SARS-CoV-1, MERS, and the SARS-CoV-2 pandemics, have a long-term and far-reaching influence on the global population, as well as the world economy.
Surveillance and early detection technologies are the critical rings in the chain of disease control. They enable the rapid discovery of the source and movement of the pathogens and the analysis, planning, and decision-making during the design and implementation of preventive or control measures.
The IAEA has considerable experience building Member States' capacities to detect and characterize pathogens early and diagnose diseases rapidly and accurately. Moreover, the IAEA has developed or contributed to  early detection and characterization tools, recognized nowadays as international standards for testing and characterization.
In the last VETLAB Network related CRP, the research partners have validated and verified several multi-target (multiple disease) techniques for syndromic diseases, established a proven workflows for the Sanger sequencing service, developed the iVetNet information platform to an advanced (but still not finalized) level and collected significant amounts of biological materials for use as positive controls in the serological and molecular techniques.
Technology development over the last few decades has enabled miniaturization and multiplexing of the diagnostic assays, thus opening new windows to understanding the ecology and the evolution of zoonotic pathogens. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) and metagenomics-based approaches (MBAs) will enable both new pathogens discovery and help find potential reservoirs and additional susceptible hosts for known zoonotic pathogens.
Most of the NGS and MBAs are currently available to advanced laboratories and are not (or are really) accessible to laboratories in developing countries. This CRP aims to develop and validate standardized workflows that will enable laboratories in developing countries to access NGS and MBAs, establish unified procedures for raw data analysis, sequence assembly, and phylogenetic reconstructions. These workflows will allow the counterpart community to understand the epidemiology and evolution of the circulating pathogens and timely detection of mutations and adjustments of the disease monitoring and control plans.
The approach in the CRP will be to adjust the existing mobile platforms (such as the Nanopore MinION), optimize the NGS / MBA workflows through the APHL and establish service-based workflows for NGS and MBAs for the VETLAB Network laboratories.