FROM THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

The North Central Conference of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians was held at Purdue University on June 10-11, 1997. We had representatives from 10 states in the Midwestern United States attend this meeting which included pathologists, virologists, bacteriologists and toxicologists working in diagnostic laboratories. Dr. Max Rodibaugh began the session by giving a talk entitled Are Swine Practitioners "Hog Wild" About Your Services? Dr. Rodibaugh was able to provide his insight regarding the future direction of swine production as well as veterinary services and diagnostic laboratories. His talk was well received. A total of 26 scientific presentations were given by faculty, staff and graduate students from these diagnostic laboratories. We are especially proud of Dr. Cindy Fishman, a graduate student beginning her third year of residency training here in the Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, who was the winner of the Graduate Student Award. Congratulations Cindy!

Since this meeting was filled with new and exciting presentations regarding animal diseases and diagnostics, we have enclosed some abstracts. We always receive a large number of phone calls regarding aquaculture cases during this time of year, so please note the two articles regarding aquaculture. We have also received several questions regarding rabies over the last few weeks, so please check out the article entitled Rabies Update. Finally, the Quarterly Bacteriology Organism Occurrence Report is absent from this newsletter, but look for this report in a more condensed format in our next issue.