PROJECT SUMMARY The FDA Vet-LIRN program and the North Carolina State University (NCSU) College of Veterinary Medicine share an important overarching mission to promote animal and human health and well-being. As part of our mission, the NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine houses the NC State Veterinary Hospital (VH), a state-of-the-art referral veterinary medical center. The NCSU VH has existing laboratory facilities that provide primary diagnostic support services for the nearly 36,000 patients seen by the VH each year. These laboratories, Clinical Pathology and Immunology, Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics, Histopathology, and Necropsy Services, have been coordinated and accepted to participate in the Vet-LIRN program as a Tier 1 laboratory. As such, the NCSU VH laboratories can serve as a resource for surveillance and emergency outbreak veterinary diagnostic analysis of pathological, microbiological, or chemical agents as directed by the Vet-LIRN program office and in coordination with NCSU program management. Our facilities, resources, and personnel expertise will be useful in the event of a large-scale food/drug emergency. By participating in the program we are contributing to the NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine mission, as well as the mission of the Vet-LIRN program to provide scientific information, build laboratory capacity, and train scientists. Our aim is to establish a cooperative agreement with the FDA's Vet-LIRN program so that we can ensure our laboratories have the infrastructure and capacity to best respond to any Vet-LIRN program request. In addition, a cooperative agreement will allow our laboratories to plan and participate in laboratory training exercises, such as proficiency testing, to ensure appropriate methods and quality control management techniques are used in the case of an event. We will also provide isolate and metadata for completion of the Vet-LIRN sequencing project. The NCSU VH laboratories are committed to and will be actively engaged in the need of the Vet-LIRN program.