Introduction

Welcome to the University of Missouri Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (VMDL) Web Site. The VMDL is an interdisciplinary laboratory in the College of Veterinary Medicine whose faculty hold academic appointments in the Departments of Veterinary Pathobiology and Veterinary Medical Sciences. The Director is administratively responsible to the Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine for the overall operation of the laboratory and its multiple missions of public service, teaching, research and continuing education/extension.

The laboratory is fully accredited as a full-service Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, Inc. It provides in-depth laboratory diagnostic support to veterinary practitioners, livestock and poultry industry interests, companion animal interests, wildlife conservationists, scientists utilizing animals in their research throughout the university, state and regulatory officials, and clinicians of the MU Veterinary Teaching Hospital. The laboratory handles more than 200,000 specimens a year and serves Missouri's 114 counties and surrounding states by performing over 300,000 diagnostic tests annually.

The VMDL plays a vital role as a unit of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Missouri. The college has attained prominence for its contributions to knowledge about infectious and reproductive diseases of livestock, small animal surgery, equine lameness, blood-borne infections and blood clotting disorders, cardiovascular physiology of animals and man, procedures for diagnosing animal diseases and humane care and use of research animals. This knowledge is disseminated to students, veterinarians, livestock and companion animal owners, and the scientific community through publications, classroom teaching, public presentations and telephone responses.

The VMDL also contributes to the protection and continued growth of the more than $2 billion per year livestock industry in Missouri, a livestock production leader in the Midwest and nation as well. The VMDL is staffed by highly qualified personnel who are constantly on guard for diseases which threaten our livestock population and for diseases which are transmissible from animals to humans.

In short, the VMDL is a full service laboratory whose three-part mission is teaching, service and research. It fulfills this mission through diagnostic assistance and consultation with veterinary practitioners, animal owners of all kinds, the instruction of professional and graduate students, and animal disease investigation.