in this report. The especially compelling scientific opportunities to improve quality of life and minimize threats include the following:

• Implementation of the concepts of one medicine and interdisciplinary research in the broader biomedical research agenda.

  • Substantially improve the integration of molecular biology, genomics, immunology, whole-animal physiology, pathophysiology, and other disciplines in disease research.

  • Encourage scientists, through grant mechanisms and other means, to work collaboratively across disciplines, institutions, and agencies.

  • Encourage research institutions to foster an environment that nurtures and rewards successful team-oriented investigators and research.

  • Expand veterinary-student involvement in ecosystem health and the ability to work collaboratively to study and understand complex systems and the intricate relationships between human beings (individuals, cultures, and societies), animals (domestic and wild), and the environment.

• Setting of priorities research to expand our knowledge, detection, and control of infectious diseases.

  • Emphasize classes of disease agents that have the highest economic importance, including those most likely to cause massive epizootics or epidemics, new and emerging diseases, and candidate bioterrorism agents.

  • Emphasize the eradication of laboratory animal diseases that adversely affect the quality of biomedical data.

  • Focus on understanding the molecular bases of virulence and how pathogenic organisms replicate and survive in the environment including studies of vector biology, wild animal hosts and reservoirs, host defense factors, and host-pathogen interactions.

  • Develop and validate rapid, sensitive, reliable, and, where possible, quantitative systems for detecting and monitoring disease-causing organisms.

• Expansion of the study and use of bioinformatics and development of databases and other resources that are readily accessible to the scientific community to enable

  • A population-level view of disease and research on interactions between wildlife, domestic animals, and humans.

  • Tracking of pathogen prevalence in animals, including companion, food-producing, and laboratory animals.

  • Tracking of foodborne diseases.

  • Maximizing of the sharing and efficiency of developing, preserving, and housing important rodent and other animal models.

• Quantification of critical, scientifically based animal health and welfare characteristics to optimize sustainable and socially responsible food-animal production and laboratory animal research.

• Expansion of research on the human-animal bond and the overall role of animals in society.