The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and Zoetis have awarded $200,000 in funding to six University of Wisconsin research projects aimed at improving the health of livestock and companion animals, the organization recently announced.

“WARF’s partnership, through our WARF Accelerator, with Zoetis reflects our mission to partner with industry and accelerate research that makes a difference,” WARF CEO Erik Iverson said in a statement. “We are thankful for our collaboration with Zoetis and proud to support UW-Madison scientists who are advancing solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in animal health.”

According to a release, the Animal Health Challenge Grant called for proposals that explored novel strategies to identify, prevent or treat diseases, including parasitic infections, that impact animal well-being and agricultural productivity.

The funded projects are:

• Novel Natural Products as Anthelmintics (Pharmaceutical Sciences)
• Target-Based Screening of Ultra-Large Virtual Chemical Libraries for Novel Heartworm Chemotherapies (Pathobiological Sciences)
• Novel Combinatorial Therapy for Mitigation of Bovine Mastitis (Animal & Dairy Sciences)
• Universal Influenza Vaccine Design for Combating H5N1 in Multiple Species (Pathobiological Sciences)
• Extracellular Vesicle Derived Anti-Tick Vaccines for Cattle (Entomology)
• Bovine Antibody Knob Discovery Platform (Pathobiological Sciences)

The selected projects represent innovative approaches to disease prevention, parasite control and therapeutic development.