The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announces that Texas A&M University and the University of Minnesota have been chosen to lead two new Homeland Security Centers of Excellence (HS-Centers) on agro-security. The Department anticipates providing Texas A&M University, the University of Minnesota and their partners with a total of $33 million over the course of the next three years to address security in two key agricultural sectors -- foreign animal diseases and food security. Homeland Security and these universities will soon begin grant negotiations to formalize their partnerships.

"I am delighted that Texas A&M University and the University of Minnesota and their teams are partnering with Homeland Security in our efforts to address agro-security challenges," said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in a statement. "I am confident that the cooperative work of these two Centers of Excellence will help further the Bush Administration's efforts to ensure the security of the nation's food supply and protect against foreign animal diseases."

The Department of Homeland Security anticipates providing Texas A&M University and its partners with $18 million over the course of the next three years for the study of high consequence foreign animal and zoonotic diseases. Texas A&M University has assembled a team of experts from across the country, which includes partnerships with the University of Texas Medical Branch, Texas Tech, University of California at Davis, University of Southern California and University of Maryland. Texas A&M University's HS-Center, which will be known as the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense, will work closely with partners in academia, industry and government to address potential threats to animal agriculture including foot-and-mouth disease, Rift Valley fever and Avian influenza. Their research on foot-and-mouth disease will be carried out in close collaboration with Homeland Security's Plum Island Animal Disease Center. The HS-Center's efforts will be headed by Dr. Neville P. Clarke, Director, Agriculture Bio-terrorism Institute, Texas A&M University.

The University of Minnesota's HS-Center, known as the University Center for Post-Harvest Food Protection and Defense, will address agro-security issues related to post-harvest food protection. The University of Minnesota's team includes partnerships with major food companies as well as other universities including Michigan State University, University of Wisconsin at Madison, North Dakota State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, Harvard University, University of Tennessee, Cornell University, Purdue University and North Carolina State University. Homeland Security anticipates providing the University of Minnesota and its partners with $15 million over the course of the next three years to establish best practices and attract new researchers to manage and respond to food contamination events, both intentional and naturally occurring. Dr. Francis F. Busta of the University of Minnesota's Department of Food Science and Nutrition will head the HS-Center's efforts.

Agro-security is a priority for the Department of Homeland Security and the Bush Administration as a whole. The development and promotion of higher education programs for the protection of animal, plant, food supply and public health were some of the measures President Bush called for in Homeland Security Presidential Directive Nine: Defense of the United States Agriculture and Food, which was issued on January 30, 2004. The Department of Homeland Security and its academic partners will work closely with the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to ensure the success of these important efforts.

In December 2003, Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate released a Broad Agency Announcement calling for proposals focusing on research efforts to address agro-security. A team of external expert evaluators, including officials from the Department of Agriculture, Department Health and Human Services' Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and academia, reviewed the 23 proposals received based on merit. Their recommendations, along with those from experts within Homeland Security and other federal agencies, were used to assess the relevance of the proposed research to the Department's mission. This process resulted in site visits to seven different institutional sites and their partners, and the eventual selection of Texas A&M University and the University of Minnesota.

The HS-Centers program, which is operated by the Department's Science and Technology Directorate, is establishing an integrated network of university-based centers that will conduct multi-disciplinary research and develop innovative educational programs for critical Homeland Security missions. Through this program, Homeland Security and partner universities bring together the nation's best experts and focus its most talented researchers on a variety of threats that include agricultural, chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological, explosive and cyber terrorism as well as the behavioral aspects of terrorism.

In November 2003, the University of Southern California, partnering with the University of Wisconsin at Madison, New York University, North Carolina State University, Carnegie Mellon University and Cornell University was chosen to house the first HS-Center, known as the Homeland Security Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events. Their efforts will now also include support of these new agro-security Centers of Excellence.

In 2004, Homeland Security plans to establish additional HS-Centers across a variety of research and development areas of interest to the Department.

A statewide alliance of five University of Texas health care institutions is training first-responders to be better prepared for bioterrorism and other disasters under a two-year, $3.6 million federal grant.

Scott R. Lillibridge, M.D., director of the Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Preparedness and professor of epidemiology at The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston and other project collaborators briefed officials of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Thursday on their progress in launching Texas Statewide Bioterrorism Continuing Education program at the UT School of Public Health.

About 2,500 front-line medical personnel have been trained under the program, which is based on curriculum developed in collaboration with the American Medical Association. The goal is to train at least 9,500 emergency medical personnel and public health officials a year for two years. The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston , The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas , The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler , and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio also are participating in the project.

The UT institutions are collaborating with Texas A&M University 's National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center , part of the Texas Engineering Extension Service, to include the center's world renowned drills and exercise programs in the training program.

The $3.6-million grant is among the first in the HHS Bioterrorism Training and Curriculum Development Program. HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced $26.6 million in new grants to recipients in 23 states late last year. The alliance led by the UT Health Science Center at Houston received the largest award of any applicant.

The new program is part of a total federal investment of $4.4 billion in fiscal year 2003 for bioterrorism preparedness. It is administered by HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which also funds other health professions programs.

Three levels of continuing education are offered under the continuing education program. The first two classroom-based courses cover recognizing and coping with bioterrorism and other mass-casualty disasters. The third, or advanced, course is an intensive two-day session that involves simulated disasters and hands-on skills practice.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate today announced the release of the first comprehensive Statement of Requirements (SoR) document outlining future technology requirements for public safety wireless communications and interoperability. The SoR can be found at www.safecomprogram.gov.

The SoR, developed under the SAFECOM Program, marks the first time the 50,000 public safety agencies have a document that defines future requirements for communicating and sharing information -- as authorized, when and where needed, and in a manner that allows for the most effective use of that information.

The SoR provides the public safety community with a shared vision and describes how first responders can use in-the-field information resources more efficiently when responding to a variety of emergency events. The SoR's other purposes are to encourage the communications industry to better align its research and development efforts with public safety needs and to identify public safety operational issues when discussions regarding laws and regulations take place.

The SoR was developed in coordination with the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Justice's Advanced Generation of Interoperability for Law Enforcement or AGILE Program. The requirements contain interoperability scenarios that range from law enforcement traffic stops to large-scale cross jurisdictional responses describing how technology can serve to enhance public safety in a variety of situations. The operational scenarios provide requirements that define how technology should function in the field, drive technology interface standards, define user's needs in the development of new technologies, and provide a guide for research and development, testing, and evaluation programs.