A Michigan State AgBioResearch animal scientist is among a group of researchers who have received a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study the genetic basis of resistance or susceptibility to Johne’s disease throughout the next five years.
Paul Coussens, a professor in the MSU departments of Animal Science and Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and director of the MSU Molecular Pathogenesis Laboratory is working on the project with C. Titus Brown, an assistant professor in the MSU departments of Computer Science and Engineering, and Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and Brian W. Kirkpatrick, an animal sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Johne’s disease is a contagious, untreatable and fatal gastrointestinal disease of domesticated ruminant livestock. It ranks as one of the most costly infectious diseases of dairy cattle, affecting 65 percent of U.S. dairies.
MSU has a long history of working both in the basic science of the organism causing Johne’s disease and the host response to it, as well as research on control programs to help producers deal with Johne’s disease.