West Virginia University and Auburn University today signed a collaborative agreement to develop programs that contribute to the national anti-terrorism preparation effort.
Collaboration between these two land-grant universities involves veterinary, science and engineering expertise from AU and medical, science and engineering expertise from WVU . The focus is planning and training for rapid response to bio-terrorism, agri-terrorism and other similar events.
AU’s Institute for Biological Detection Systems and WVU ’s Virtual Medical Campus TM/SM are the primary components of the agreement. Training and planning support will be provided through an Integrated Knowledge Base being developed at WVU and a high-speed telecommunications network.
Areas for collaboration include AUs development of facilities at Ft. McClellan, Ala., and WVUs development of the VMC and its high-speed network at Morgantown, W.Va.
“West Virginia University and Auburn intend to develop collaborative and mutually supportive programs in preparedness for attack by weapons of mass destruction, including bio-detection technologies, high-performance computing and networking technologies, simulation and data visualization technologies, knowledge development systems, and advanced education and training technologies,”said John Weete, associate provost for research at WVU and president of the WVU Research Corp.”Through todays agreement, the two universities intend to partner in a manner that allows them to address problems collectively and share opportunities that may not be readily available to them individually.”
“Each university has programs that support the U.S. medical community and related government agencies in preparing for and responding to events involving weapons of mass destruction,”said Michael Moriarty, vice president for research at AU.”Auburn has strengths in bio-detection, bio-collection and protection technologies, and West Virginia University has strengths in knowledge development, information technology infrastructure development and bio-detection technologies.”
