Awarded Grants
Below is a listing of our awarded grants that tackle big food and agriculture challenges.

This project developed and validated a universal diagnostic technology that uses Nanopore target-capture sequencing to rapidly identify fungal pathogens associated with southern pine needle diseases at the species level. The tool generated high-resolution profiles of fungal communities linked to needle blight and needlecast outbreaks, improving understanding of emerging forest health threats and providing a foundation for future disease management strategies. Beyond southern pines, the technology has the potential to diagnose other complex forest diseases and enable faster identification of emerging pathogens across forest ecosystems.

This project developed the first robust phenology model for wheat stem sawfly in the Central Great Plains, enabling growers to predict pest emergence, peak activity and decline using growing degree-days to improve monitoring and management decisions. The research also identified novel wheat stem sawfly-resistant traits in commercially available wheat varieties, providing breeders and producers with new tools to reduce crop losses. Together, these advances strengthen the ability of farmers across Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas to manage this emerging pest and improve the resilience of regional wheat production systems.

This project advanced African swine fever (ASF) vaccine development by identifying 29 ASF virus proteins recognized by the immune system, discovering key targets for future vaccine design and developing a DIVA (Differentiating Infected from Vaccinated Animals) marker live-attenuated vaccine through deletion of the CD2 gene. The resulting vaccine platform has potential for commercial use and could help countries distinguish vaccinated animals from infected animals, a critical capability for ASF outbreak control and disease-status management. The project also generated foundational knowledge and new vaccine targets that will guide future efforts to develop safe and effective ASF vaccines for the swine industry.

This project advanced African Swine Fever (ASF) vaccine development by identifying seven ASFV proteins and two highly conserved T-cell epitopes that may contribute to protective immunity in pigs, providing critical new targets for future subunit vaccine design. While the prototype vaccine generated strong antibody responses, the antibodies were not protective; however, the findings established an important proof of concept and generated new knowledge that will guide the development of safer and more effective ASF vaccines to help protect the U.S. pork industry.

This project accelerated the development of lettuce cultivars resistant to Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus (INSV) by creating a rapid screening method that does not require working with the live virus, identifying more than 13 resistant wild relatives of lettuce and initiating the transfer of resistance into cultivated lettuce. The research also generated the first large-scale collection of contemporary INSV genome sequences from western U.S. production regions, providing critical insights into pathogen diversity and informing strategies to deploy durable resistance that can help protect a multi-billion-dollar lettuce industry from significant disease losses.

This project demonstrated the feasibility of a highly multivalent mRNA nanoparticle vaccine platform for African swine fever (ASF) by successfully designing, manufacturing, and delivering a vaccine expressing 22 ASF viral proteins and evaluating it in a proof-of-concept swine challenge study. Although the vaccine did not protect pigs from disease, it generated ASF-specific antibody responses and produced critical data that will inform future ASF subunit vaccine development, while establishing a rapid-response vaccine production capability that can generate candidate livestock vaccines from a sequenced pathogen within weeks.

This project generated the first comprehensive understanding of cotton leafroll dwarf virus (CLRDV) as an emerging threat to U.S. cotton production by developing diagnostic tools, identifying overwintering hosts and transmission pathways, documenting disease distribution and yield impacts and evaluating cotton germplasm for resistance. The findings led directly to practical management recommendations, including earlier planting dates, weed host control and stalk destruction, which were rapidly disseminated to growers, while providing foundational data that supported a coordinated multi-state research effort and secured more than $10 million in follow-on funding for CLRDV research.