MANHATTAN, Kan. — Two hours west of Kansas City, a multibillion-dollar research hub is emerging on the prairie as a new first line of defense against animal diseases that can decimate livestock, rattle financial markets and potentially spill over into humans.
Why it matters: The growing avian flu outbreak in the U.S., highly contagious swine fever circulating in Europe and Asia and other pathogens have put a premium on the ability to amp up production of vaccines and other medical countermeasures — and pulling more of that work back to the U.S. from overseas.
