A sensitive, reproducible, and accurate test that identifies CWD at early stages in live deer is a key component to implement strategies that may prevent the spread of CWD in unaffected deer

Dream Genomics, Inc. received a $240,000 cooperative agreement award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025), effective September 30, 2025, through September 29, 2026. The awardee will develop a minimally-invasive blood test to identify Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in live deer at early disease stages. The research employs gene expression profiling to establish a bioprofile of differentially expressed genes in blood samples collected from live deer, offering a novel diagnostic approach that potentially provides greater sensitivity than current prion detection methods. This work is the initial phase toward developing a rapid, practical blood test suitable for use on live cervids.

The anticipated products and services include validated gene expression data that can identify CWD-infected animals, alternative diagnostic methodology to current invasive tissue-based testing, and foundational research supporting future rapid blood test development. The research benefits wildlife management agencies by providing an alternative to whole-herd depopulation and enables deer farmers to monitor animal health status at multiple time points post-exposure, ensure disease-free animals entering or leaving facilities, and verify venison safety. Work is being performed in Northbrook, Illinois, utilizing blood samples provided by APHIS and partner deer farms to support CWD surveillance and management strategies in farmed deer operations.

Current testing for CWD involves invasive procedures that cannot be used often on the same animal and is difficult to accomplish in live deer. There is a critical need to monitor live deer and detect the disease early to help prevent outbreaks. The goal of this project is to develop a minimally-invasive test that can be used on live deer at any time in order to change the management practice of complete depopulation or total herd isolation. We are collecting blood samples provided by aphis and deer farms from live deer and measuring the level of expressed genes to determine a bioprofile (a collection of differentially expressed genes) that can be used to identify animals with CWD. To discover the bioprofile, we need to know if the deer from which the samples collected were diagnosed with CWD using other testing methods. Testing for differentially expressed genes in blood of live deer rather than detecting the pathogenic prion directly in affected tissues is a novel approach and has the potential to be more sensitive than waiting for prion titer to reach a limit of detection using currently employed assays. This research can provide wildlife agencies an alternative to whole herd depopulation in helping to manage the transmission of CWD in farmed deer. Deer farmers will have access to a minimally invasive test that can be performed on live deer at multiple stages post-exposure to CWD deer. Deer farmers can also benefit by ensuring that deer leaving or arriving at their facility are free from CWD. In addition, they will have the knowledge that venison is disease free. While the data from this project will be sufficient to identify CWD infected deer from blood of live animals, this research is the first phase toward a rapid blood test in live cervids. After this discovery research project and initial test availability, a more cost-effective and simplified test will be developed using the classifier bioprofile genes in a rapid real time-PCR assay. In addition, more research will expand the results from this project to target even earlier detection. A third phase will be the development of a deer-side field test that can be accomplished in minutes using drops of blood. This minimally invasive test that can detect CWD at earlier stages in live deer would be a first step in prov iding alternative strategies for herd management, helping to mitigate the economic toll of depopulating deer farms, and assisting in preventing the further spread of CWD.