Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The meeting was opened with presentations by the Administrative Advisor Kevin Kephart, focused on the upcoming proposal renewal, and by David Morris, with an overview of the importance of the committee from the perspective of the USDA. Briefly, Dr. Kephart summarized the administrative requirements for the existing committee, and notified committee members of necessary administrative tasks for the upcoming renewal proposal which will be due December 1, 2004. The replacement committee has temporarily been assigned the designation NC_Temp1882, and further backup including completed appendix C and E will be required for each member. Dr. David Morris then addressed the committee, summarizing the current efforts of the USDA to support the goals of the committee and potential upcoming funding initiatives that may be relevant to this committee. As a component of this discussion, Dr. Morris described the formation of an Interagency Working Group on Prion Science, which may provide future funding strategies relevant to NC505. Accomplishments of the previous 6 months were discussed, including the creation of a Listsserv to allow greater communication between committee members and other prion researchers. During discussion of the creation of a web page, Forrest Chumley of Kansas State University suggested that Kansas could provide support for such an effort, and in conjunction with Chris Booth would work towards that end with guidance from the group. The discussion then turned to the request from the ESCOP Science and Technology Committee for a White Paper on prion risk analysis. While the original request specifically mentioned Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, the group generally supported the idea of a more general document encompassing all US prion diseases, including Chronic Wasting Disease of deer and elk. It was suggested that Dr. Will Hueston would be an ideal member to head up this effort, in collaboration and with the assistance of Drs Graham and Chumley. While Dr. Hueston was absent, it was agreed that he should be contacted to participate and spearhead this effort. The committee further considered the suggestion by ESCOP that the membership be further broadened to include additional members. It was generally agreed that additional expertise would further benefit the work of the committee, and a number of potential committee members were discussed. Dr. Thurston further suggested that additional industry representatives could add to the value of the committee, and it was decided to contact producer groups representing both cattle and sheep production to this end. The remainder of the meeting directly addressed the preparation of the upcoming proposal. The primary goal of this discussion was to establish a set of objectives which was generally representative of the expertise of the group, and to assign tasks towards the composition of the document. While it was generally agreed that there were 4 major foci of the proposal (Training, Basic Research on Pathogenesis, Environmental Contamination, and Impact on Stakeholders), the committee agreed on 7 basic objectives that should be incorporated into the final proposal. These include: 1) Pathogenesis of prion diseases 2) Diagnosis of prion diseases 3) Environmental contamination and its role in Disease Transmission 4) Animal Management in prion diseases 5) Role of prion strains in disease pathogenesis 6) Genetics/genomics in prion disease 7) Inactivation of prions. Dr. Richt urged the group to consider the deliverables of these objectives in any proposal, and while it was generally felt that dissemination of information from these studies should be a component of the proposal, it should not form one of the basic objectives. However, it was decided that an NC-505 milestone should be to sponsor and organize a conference similar to the recently completed Animal Prion Diseases in the Americas during the 3rd or 4th year of the proposal. A number of further details were discussed, most of which involved the relevant components of each of the above objectives, prior to assigning duties. It was agreed that Alan Young would assume responsibility for assembling and submitting the finished proposal. Dr. Richt would specifically contribute towards objective 5, and Drs. Urnovitz, Sreevatsand, Booth, and Skinner would compose the bulk of Objective 6. Finally, the committee discussed the date of the next meeting. It was decided that an optimal time for the meeting, given the growing collaboration between wildlife researchers and NC505, should be held in conjunction with the International Chronic Wasting Disease meeting to be held in Madison Wisconsin July 12-14 2005. Michael Samuel will forward information on that meeting to define a specific date once the meeting has been finalized. The meeting adjourned at 2:00.

The two primary goals of this meeting were to address the request from the ESCOP Science and Technology Committee for a white paper on prion diseases, and to discuss the upcoming renewal proposal for NC505. A number of new members and guests were present, including Drs Jonathan Jenks, Bradley Thurston, Kong, and Sandor Dudas. In response to the request by ESCOP, it was decided that a) Dr. Young will contact Dr. Hueston, and request he spearhead the effort to develop a white-paper in response to the request by ESCOP. Drs. Chumley and Graham will assist Dr. Hueston in this effort, in conjunction with input by other committee members. With respect to greater impact and information dissemination by the committee, a) Dr Chumley will investigate the creation and maintenance of a prion-focused, NC505 directed website through Kansas State University. Other members will assist in development of content. b Dr Young will continue to maintain the prion Listserv at AES_NC505@mail.abs.sdstate.edu In order to organize the next meeting, Dr. Samuel will inform the rest of the committee of the final meeting arrangements for the International Chronic Wasting Disease Meeting in Wisconsin in July 2005. As related to proposal preparation for NC_Temp1882: a) Drs Urnovitz, Sreevatsan, Booth, and Skinner will compose a description on the role of molecular genetics in prion research (Objective 6) b) Drs Richt and Sreevatsan will compose a description of the role of prion strain variants in prion disease for Objective 5. c) Dr. Young will work on the total proposal, collating the efforts of other committee members. This proposal will be forwarded to all members for general approval prior to submission. d) All members will complete an Appendix E for the new proposal and forward it either to their relevant Experiment Station Director or Dr. Kephart for approval.

None