Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory
The Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory System (CSUVDL) is comprised of three laboratories that offer a wide range of services. The main laboratory is located at the James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Fort Collins with branch laboratories in Grand Junction and Rocky Ford. The Diagnostic Laboratory provides timely, accurate and pertinent animal disease diagnostic services as well as education outreach to veterinarians, animal industries, and other animal interest groups, while constantly developing new and better tests for disease identification.
Services available at the Laboratory cover pathology, bacteriology, virology, immunology, toxicology, parasitology, and endocrinology. The Laboratory supports patient work at the James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital and is a state, national and international resource for other veterinarians. In fiscal year 2003-2004, the Diagnostic Laboratory performed 284,932 diagnostic tests on samples submitted from all 50 states, Canada , Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand.
Faculty and staff at the Laboratory are among the nation's finest in their fields of expertise and offer comprehensive diagnostic services while supporting the College's missions of teaching, research and service. The Laboratory provides thorough training of the professional veterinary medical, graduate and post-doctoral student through intensive hands-on experience. Colorado State's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory is accredited by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians as a full service laboratory for all species of animals.
CSUVDL was chosen as one of 12 pilot laboratories to develop the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN). The NAHLN laboratories are regional, funded with local, state and federal monies and are designed to respond to any type of animal health emergency, including bioterrorist events, newly emerging diseases, and foreign animal disease agents that threaten the nation's food supply and public health. The network includes computerized submission of certain laboratory test results to a national database to assist in disease surveillance.
The recent case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) points out how the CSU's laboratory and the NAHLN can help. CSUVDL is one of 5 high throughput laboratories in the nation for BSE rapid testing and has performed over 25,000 tests in the first six months of screening (over 20% of the total tested nationally).