As part of the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System (PADLS), Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center helps to protect animals and humans from health threats and minimize agricultural economic loss.
7 min. read
Key Takeaways
Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center (NBC) is part of the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System (PADLS) that was established by the Pennsylvania Animal Health and Diagnostic Commission to diagnose, contain, and prevent threats to animal health and minimize economic losses.
Monitoring milk for avian influenza and eggs for Salmonella are two of many services PADLS-NBC provides farms in Pennsylvania.
PADLS-NBC is the only site that can provide full veterinary diagnostic services, including identifying new and emerging threats in animals, animal feed, and the environment.
A strain of the H5N1 virus—best known for causing avian influenza—was detected in U.S. dairy cattle for the first time in March 2024. It has since spread to more than 1,000 herds across 17 states. With dairy one of the top sectors in an agricultural industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually, the outbreak raised concerns not only about risks to animal and human health but also about its economic impact.
But none of those herds are in Pennsylvania, thanks in large part to the work done by the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System (PADLS), established in 1991 by the Pennsylvania Animal Health and Diagnostic Commission.
The PADLS lab system was born out of—coincidentally—a 1983 avian influenza outbreak in Pennsylvania that had a significant impact, says Michael Smith, Penn’s senior director of Commonwealth relations. “In the immediate years that followed, state officials and animal health experts—including those at Penn Vet—realized that there had to be a better way.”
“PADLS is here in Pennsylvania for lots of reasons,” says Lisa Murphy, a professor at Penn Vet and the resident director of PADLS at New Bolton Center. “We’re here to accurately diagnose disease in animals. We’re here to protect food safety. And we also ensure public health through what we do.”
Each lab has a base set of capabilities that are shared across the entire system, says Smith, “That is one of the virtues of this system—redundancy,” he adds. “If anything were ever to happen to one of the three existing labs, the other two are in a position to step in to meet the industry’s needs.” But, he adds, they do differ in the types of specialized services that they offer. “The lab at New Bolton Center, for example, is the only one of the three that has toxicology capabilities.”
“PADLS is an indispensable tool as Pennsylvania’s first line of defense against devastating animal diseases like highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI),” says Alex Hamberg, Pennsylvania’s state veterinarian and director of the Bureau of Animal Health and Diagnostic Services. “The work of the labs also protects public health in instances of foodborne illness and rabies that affect humans but are spread by animals.”
Partnering with farms to monitor milk and eggs
In Pennsylvania, agriculture is big business, with an economic impact “well north of $130 billion,” according to Smith. “By many accounts, it is the largest industry in Pennsylvania when you include the hardwoods industry and food processing and manufacturing,” says Smith. “When you get into Lancaster County, that is some of the most populated and important agricultural land in all of America.”
“Dairy is the largest animal sector,” he continues, “but poultry, beef, and swine production are also significant.”
In response to the detection of H5N1 in U.S. dairy cattle, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture required bulk milk testing to mitigate the risk of Influenza A—including HPAI—in November 2024, ahead of the mandate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in December 2024.
(Left) Testing for the presence of Salmonella. (Right) Extracting egg yolk from quail eggs to screen for the presence of Influenza A.
“[The outbreak] has actually added a whole new component in terms of the animal health and the food safety testing that we’ve been doing,” explains Murphy. Most of the milk testing is done at the Penn State PADLS site—a total of 22,705 samples as of June 13, 2025—she adds, but PADLS-NBC has tested 890samples since it started testing in May 2024.
“[Pennsylvania is] currently at Stage Four [HPAI-free status], which is the highest stage a state can achieve,” says Murphy. “We were the first major dairy-producing state to reach that stage.” She adds that to date, no dairy cows have tested positive for H5N1 in Pennsylvania.
In addition to monitoring milk, PADLS-NBC also supports the poultry industry, including with its Pennsylvania Egg Quality Assurance Program, or PEQAP, which Murphy says is a monitoring program to ensure that Pennsylvania eggs are free of Salmonella.
PEQAP includes basic preventative measures such as cleaning and disinfecting between flocks, intensive rodent control, environmental monitoring of pullet (young hens) and layer (egg-laying hens) houses, and only introducing chicks that have been certified free of Salmonella.
Before PEQAP was implemented in 1994, eggs were tested for Salmonella, explains Murphy, but that process was not standardized nor widespread. In 1992 when PADLS tested eggs from just 134 flocks from 76 farms, Murphy says 23% of eggs and 38% of the manure samples tested positive.
But by 2001, those numbers were 1.5% and 11%, respectively. And in 2010—when eggs from approximately 300 flocks from more than 180 farms were tested as part of the program—only 0.011% of eggs and 1.85% of manure samples tested positive.
The program is voluntary, Murphy explains, but it is “the basis for the national model that’s now in place everywhere by the Food and Drug Administration to similarly make sure that eggs in the store are safe.”
Tracking and containing diseases and environmental contaminants
But PADLS-NBC offers more than these two services, says Murphy. In fact, as the only site in the PADLS system with a toxicology lab, it is uniquely positioned to help monitor a broader spectrum of risks and threats—both natural and humanmade—to animals and potentially people.
For example, says Murphy, PADLS-NBC is developing tests to detect new and emerging toxicants such as insecticides like neonicotinoids and “forever chemicals” like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—including perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS)—which are used as a coating for paper and cardboard food packaging, carpets, fabrics, nonstick cookware, and more.
“[PFAS and PFOS] have gotten a lot of concern in terms of environmental contamination,” says Murphy. She explains that PADLS-NBC has been assisting the Pennsylvania Game Commission in evaluating the risks they may pose to wildlife and to humans who consume venison or fish. PADLS-NBC is also working with the PA Department of Agriculture to determine whether these chemicals pose a risk to milk.
(Top) Nicole Morrison and Rob Briley preparing to test manure samples for Salmonella. (Botton left) Isis Lawson using the centrifuge to spin down samples in preparation for PCR testing in a lab. (Bottom right) Denise Barnhart applying matrix to a target plate of bacterial isolates for identification in a lab.
If state or federal agencies—like the USDA, for example—need to conduct an investigation and require assistance identifying an infectious or contagious animal disease, says Murphy, or if there are concerns about animal or human food safety, “we’re able to provide local support.”
PADLS-NBC also works directly with veterinarians and farmers to help them assess the health and well-being of their animals by identifying nutritional and/or metabolic issues. Providing this service “actually gives us the ability to help—so to give recommendations back to veterinarians and producers based on our results,” says Murphy.
“We get involved at the beginning, the middle, and the end,” explains Murphy. “At the beginning, a lot of time when people have an unexpected animal illness or losses, they don’t necessarily know whether it’s a toxicology problem or maybe an infectious disease problem. They just know they’re having a problem, and they need some help.”
Future plans
“The system is being expanded to include a fourth lab at Penn State’s Beaver Campus, funded in Governor Josh Shapiro’s 2024-25 budget with broad, bipartisan support,” says Hamberg. “The popular support of the lab system’s expansion demonstrates the recognition among industry partners, the General Assembly and the Shapiro Administration of just how critical PADLS is to the Commonwealth’s economic vitality, the competitive position and stability of farms and other ag businesses, the security of our food supply, and our public health.”
Smith adds that PADLS is a further demonstration of Penn’s commitment to Pennsylvania. “It’s in keeping with Penn’s strategic framework to be anchored, engaged, and interwoven in the Commonwealth in which we reside,” he says. “It is helping to protect the safety of people, it is helping to protect the safety and health of animals, it is helping to preserve the vibrancy and vitality of a very important economic industry for the state.”
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