The NSRL has played a substantial roll in the investigation of mammalian-borne zoonoses over the last twenty years.  This involvement has been in two primary areas, resources and personnel.  Resources include the Genetic Resource Collection (frozen tissue and blood samples) that serve as material for initial detection and isolation of diseases and voucher specimens for verification and documentation of host species.  Personnel at the NSRL have offered expertise in specimen identification, deposition of voucher material, systematics, phylogenetic reconstruction, procurement of research material, and in the development of genetic profiles.  Listed below are a few of the projects dependent on the NSRL’s resources and personnel.

For nearly twenty years, the NSRL has worked with the Texas Department of Public Health in identifying bat specimens suspected of carrying the rabies virus.

Rodent tissues housed in the Genetic Resource Collection played a vital role in the Center for Disease Control response to the hantavirsus outbreak in the early 1990’s.

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