Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for FARAD includes veterinarians, extension specialists, government and industry regulators as well as producers throughout all parts of the food animal industries. Veterinarians may submit questions for expert mediated consultations by FARAD via a nationwide toll-free hotline (1.888.873.2723) or through an internet based online submission portal. The data bank, which is updated and maintained regularly, is readily searchable and allows for curated information to be accessed and considered by trained FARAD experts who provide guidance in response to inquiries from veterinarians about potential residue problems associated with situations involving contaminant exposure or legal extralabel drug therapy in food producing animal species. In addition, online and mobile-friendly apps (VetGRAM) provide access to a database of FDA-approved drug uses in animals. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The web-based resources developed and maintained by UF FARAD are readily available to the public through our free public websites. We also work on a daily basis with collaborating institutions to compile and update the databank that is utilized by trained FARAD experts to provide guidance in response to inquiries from veterinarians regarding potential residue issues associated with contaminant exposure or legal extralabel drug use in food producing species. Research findings have been submitted to peer reviewed journals to disseminate FARAD-generated data to target audiences in the veterinary and scientific communities. Outreach by UF FARAD was conducted to Florida food animal veterinarians at the state FVMA food animal meeting in March, 2024, and nationally through a booth at the American Association of Bovine Practitioners annual conference in 2023. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The project is now in a no-cost extension phase and during this we will complete the remaining project goals. We will continue to maintain and upgrade FARAD web-based services. We will continue to maintain the central database of FDA-approved drugs, and we will be moving the database from the web server at the University of Florida to a platform whereby programmers any of theFARAD centers can work with the database; this will facilitate efficiency across the FARAD centers. We will contine to contribute to the national FARAD objectives in collaboration with other FARAD centers. There were several delays to work on the 2023 grant due to delays in Visa processing for one postdoctoral fellow, as well as a postdoctoral fellow and a research scientist who were assigned to work on this project leaving UF for faculty or industry positions. Work will also continue to complete the project goals of development of a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model for long-acting penicillin in cattle, the work on artificial intelligence- and machine-learning-based models to predict PK parameters of different drugs in different species, and the conversion of PBPK models into user-friendly web-based interfaces so that the FARAD responders can use these interfaces to predict withdrawal intervals. These projects are important, as FARAD receives thousands of calls per year, and it is imperative to provide timely and quality responses based on user-friendly scientific tools.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Impact: The Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank (FARAD) is a collaborative university-based food safety program that is coordinated and delivered by faculty and staff at five US Universities. Throughout its 42-year existence, FARAD has continued to evolve to meet the changing demands of providing accurate, timely and reliable service to both the veterinary profession and food animal industry stakeholders. At present, the program is managed through a very close collaboration of personnel at Colleges of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California-Davis (UCD), University of Florida (UF), North Carolina State University (NCSU), and Virginia-Maryland (VM), as well as Kansas State University-Olathe (KSUO). The core mission of FARAD is to protect the American public by promoting the production of safe, animal-derived human food products (milk, eggs, meat, honey, etc.) that are devoid of violative or potentially unsafe chemical residues, including drugs, pesticides, environmental contaminants, natural toxins and other harmful substances. In order to carry out this mission, the FARAD team collates, analyzes and interprets the most up-to-date information and uses that unique data repository to provide accurate and timely expert advice to assist veterinarians who are faced with situations that could cause unsafe chemical residues in human food products. In addition, FARAD maintains and provides an array of complete information resources for veterinarians, extension specialists, farmers, regulatory personnel and others who are the stewards of our nation's expansive commercial food animal industries and the growing number of small backyard livestock operations. Throughout over four decades of delivering this program, FARAD has continued to develop increased sophistication with respect to (1) acquisition and cataloging of pharmacokinetic data and comprehensive information resources, (2) adapting efficient mechanisms for information delivery and outreach to target audiences and (3) utilizing complex quantitative tools and models for accurately estimating safe withdrawal intervals for a wide array of drugs and chemicals in nearly all species of domestic food animals. One of the major responsibilities of FARAD at UF is the development, maintenance and support of web-based and other electronic resources. Use of these resources has increased annually over the last decade, including over the past year, providing objective evidence of FARAD's strong, long-term growth. In the absence of FARAD and the program's well-recognized ability to provide scientifically-based recommendations for withdrawal intervals, extralabel drug use could not safely take place in food animal species. Specific objectives and accomplishments: The UF FARAD team continued to work with our collaborating institutions to validate computational estimates of safe withdrawal times. Our other major focus at the UF FARAD center during the reporting period remained support, maintenance and development of web-based and mobile-device resources. Use of all FARAD program services continue to grow, both in terms of the number of visits to our web-based information resources located at www.farad.org, and in the number of residue-related questions received via our telephone hotline and internet-based portal. During 2023 the regional access centers answered 5,825 specific inquiries (entailing multiple drugs/contaminants) that directly involved 5.8 million animals, representing a 33% increase over the previous year. Additionally, use of web-based resources, which are supported and maintained by the UF FARAD component, continued to increase dramatically. In this reporting period, in addition to supporting the other FARAD centers in achieving our common goals, UF FARAD continued to: • Maintain and upgrade web-based resources (available at www.farad.org) • Maintain and upgrade the VetGRAM apps for mobile devices for both Android and iOS users. • Perform frequent reviews of data on the FDA website, extract and new data on drug use in food animal species, and enter that information into the US Approved Animal Drugs Database (US-AADD). The database is essential to web-based and responder services, and it is vital that it be updated frequently so that information provided to users is current. We also continued to revise and expand the drug withdrawal databases that support our proprietary online withdrawal interval lookup tool, an online resource that allows access to recommended withdrawal intervals for selected drug-species combinations without the veterinarian having to submit a specific request through the online web portal. • The UF Regional Center helped analyze pharmacokinetic data generated from other Regional Centers and provided other pharmacokinetic support as needed, including supporting the other FARAD centers to validate computational estimates of safe withdrawal times. • UF FARAD continued to develop PBPK models and user-friendly web-based interactive PBPK interfaces for use by FARAD responders for estimating withdrawal intervals of drugs, including development of a model to estimate withdrawal intervals in cattle and in swine after legal extralabel dermal (pour-on) use of flunixin, based on a high number of requests submitted to FARAD responders on this use. This project is important as FARAD receives thousands of calls every year and it is imperative to provide timely and quality responses based on user-friendly scientific tools. We continued work on new machine learning and artificial intelligence models, including novel models to predict plasma half-lives of drugs in veterinary species, and presented this work at relevant national and regional meetings. • UF FARAD conducted outreach and education for veterinarians on drug residue avoidance through representation at state (2024 Florida FVMA Harvey Rubin Food Animal Conference) and National (2023 American Association of Bovine Practitioners Annual Conference) meetings, including a informational booth at the lattermeeting.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Lin Z. Development and applications of PBPK models to predict tissue residues and withdrawal times of drugs in food-producing animals to support food safety assessment. Part of the Workshop entitled Use of PBPK and Novel Pharmacokinetic Approaches for the Quantitative Prediction of Tissue Residue and Withdrawal Times for Human Food Safety Assessment . (Chairs: Ronald Baynes and Zhoumeng Lin) The 63rd Annual Meeting of Society of Toxicology, Salt Lake City, UT. The Toxicologist, Supplement to Toxicological Sciences, 198, (S1), p. 15, abstract #: 1055. (March 10-14, 2024)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Wu X. An AI-QSAR model to predict the plasma half-life of drugs in dogs. Southeast Regional Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Annual Meeting, Gainesville, FL. (April 26-27, 2024)
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Wu X, Wu PY, Chou WC, Tell LA, Maunsell FP, Lin Z. Development of an Artificial Intelligence-enabled Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (AI-QSAR) Model to Predict the Plasma Half-life of Drugs in Dogs. UF PHHP Annual Research Days, Gainesville, FL. (April 15-16, 2024)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Wu X, Wu PY, Chou WC, Tell LA, Maunsell FP, Lin Z. Predicting the Plasma Half-Life of Medications Administered to Dogs: An Artificial Intelligence Based Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (AI-QSAR) Model. The 63rd Annual Meeting of Society of Toxicology, Salt Lake City, UT. The Toxicologist, Supplement to Toxicological Sciences, 198, (S1), p. 72, abstract/poster board #: 2003. (March 10-14, 2024)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Ramachandran RA, Zad N, Tell LA, Xu X, Riviere JE, Baynes R, Lin Z, Maunsell F, Davis J, Jaberi-Douraki M. Advancing Food Safety: Predicting Maximum-Residue-Limits for Veterinary Medicines using AI/ML. Poster Session, Nexus Informatics Conference, Kansas City (April 25-26, 2024).
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Wu X, Chen Q, Chou WC, Maunsell F, Tell L, Baynes RE, Davis J, Jaberi-Douraki M, Riviere JE, Lin Z. Development of a Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic Model for Flunixin in Cattle and Swine Following Dermal Exposure. Under review by Toxicological Sciences (manuscript TOXSCI-24-0356).
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