For her contributions to science advancing swine health and production, Minnesota veterinarian Laura Bruner has earned the 2026 Allen D. Leman Science in Practice Award, which will be presented at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference in September.
The annual award recognizes swine practitioners who use science to solve critical health and production problems for pork producers.
Continue reading “Laura Bruner named 2026 Science in Practice Award winner by University of Minnesota Swine Group”This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Bob Morrison’s Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.
North Carolina State University researchers Jason A. Galvis, Aniruddha Deka and Gustavo Machado share their findings about the use of different sampling methods for early detection of ASFV in today’s Science Page.
Continue reading “Evaluating on-farm sampling strategies for early detection of African swine fever”
By the University of Minnesota Swine Group
The reporting on April 30, 2026 of pigs positive to pseudorabies in Iowa and Texas is a good reminder that we cannot be complacent when it comes to infectious diseases.
Pseudorabies virus (PRV) causes a devastating clinical picture resembling rabies in young pigs, thus the name. This disease, also known as Aujeszky’s disease, is most severe in piglets, causing high mortality as well as tremors, seizures, paralysis, incoordination and “dog-sitting” signs. As they get older, infected pigs experience respiratory disease with fever, coughing, and pneumonia. In sows, PRV causes abortions and stillbirths and in boars the virus can be shed in semen. PRV transmits primarily by direct contact with secretions of infected pigs but other routes such as exposure to contaminated fomites or aerosols can lead to infection.
Continue reading “What you need to know about pseudorabies”Veterinary students: Are you shadowing a swine practitioner this summer or have you been involved in an interesting clinical case investigation? Did you work on your veterinary skills by designing a differential diagnosis list or working on a treatment plan? Did you investigate a problem by analyzing production records? Share your work at the Allen D. Leman Swine Conference to win the Morrison Swine Innovator Prize!
Attending the Leman Conference is a great opportunity for veterinary students who want to network with industry leaders. Submissions to enter in the selection to present at the DVM student session at the Leman Conference should be uploaded at z.umn.edu/MSIP by the end of the day August 15th.
Continue reading “DVM Students: Start planning now to apply for this year’s Morrison Swine Innovator Prize!”Today we are sharing a recent publication from the VanderWaal lab looking at PRRSV sequences from Canada. The full publication is available in open access on the journal Pathogens’ website.
Continue reading “Phylogenetic Lineages of Canadian PRRSV-2 Reveal Transboundary Spread and Two Novel Sub-Lineages”