Combating weapons of mass destruction? UNL flexes ag analysis prowess to countrywide agency | Training

Although countering WMDs may not be the initially link lots of attract when contemplating about UNL’s ag division, the parts are all there, stated UNL Vice Chancellor Mike Boehm, who has led the institute given that 2017.

Plant pathology, agronomy, entomology, animal science and veterinary medicine are just a couple of the 15 educational departments within IANR, Boehm said, which previously do do the job close to protecting safety of the food system.

IANR also boasts 17 different facilities that examine the consequences of drought, normally a catalyst to conflict, investigate safe and efficient ways for uncooked supplies to stop up on grocery retail store shelves, even how slight adjustments in a corn plant’s genetic make-up manifest themselves physically.

“Though we you should not wake up each working day imagining about weapons of mass destruction, the science of understanding pathogens and infectious entities, how they cause ailment and how we keep issues wholesome is anything we wake up each individual day imagining about at IANR,” he stated.

Trained as a plant pathologist himself, Boehm is also a previous Army Reserve medic and bioweapons screening specialist for the U.S. Navy who labored lively responsibility adhering to the terrorist assaults of 9/11.

In that function, Boehm was responsible for developing procedures for detecting colorless and odorless biological threats — work that later on carried about into his profession in academia, where by he taught lessons on biosecurity and bioterrorism at Ohio State.