Investigators and Program Directors

Program Description and Research Interests

Robert Rudd directs the Wadsworth Center rabies laboratory which provides rabies virus diagnostic services to all of New York State. The laboratory operates in a free-standing Biosafety Level (BSL)-3 building, specifically designed and constructed for the unique demands of animal necropsy and rabies diagnosis and research. During the last decade the lab has examined 8 -10,000 animals for evidence of rabies infection and 3,000 human sera for rabies antibody each year.

The primary tool in rabies diagnosis is the direct fluorescent antibody procedure on samples of brain tissue. Viral isolation in murine neuroblastoma cell culture is employed as a confirmatory procedure. The laboratory also serves as the regional reference laboratory for the northeastern United States. This service provides consultation and confirmatory testing of difficult diagnostic specimens and the typing of rabies virus isolates using antigenic analysis with monoclonal antibody panels and molecular typing using RT-PCR.

Research interests include the improvement of rabies diagnostic techniques and the epidemiology and pathogenesis of bat rabies. Our interest in the improvement of rabies diagnosis has enabled this laboratory to contribute a number of advances to the detection of rabies virus. These include an in-vitro virus isolation procedure that has replaced the intracerebral inoculation of mice and a commercially available rabies diagnostic conjugate of monoclonal antibody origin.

For over thirty years this laboratory has been productive in the investigation of bat rabies. The large inventory of bat rabies virus isolates and the availability of rabies-positive bat specimens make this laboratory uniquely capable for the investigation of the epidemiology and pathogenesis of rabies in bats, which have proven to be the most frequent source of human rabies infections in the United States. Additionally, the laboratory maintains a small colony of bats for serologic studies.

Contact Information

Phone: 518-869-4527
E-mail: rjr06@health.state.ny.us