ICASA Seeks Research to Examine and Treat Liver Abscesses in Beef Cattle

Jun 30, 2022

The International Consortium for Antimicrobial Stewardship in Agriculture (ICASA) is soliciting concepts for animal health research that accelerates antibiotic stewardship across the livestock supply chain.

Liver abscesses, a condition caused by bacteria crossing from an animal’s gastrointestinal tract into the bloodstream and accumulating in the liver, affect roughly 20 percent of US beef cattle, although the incidence can be as high as 70 percent in some groups. The conditionis associated with reduced feed efficiency and greater trimming at harvest, negatively impacting industry profitability. Animal scientists and veterinarians do not fully understand how liver abscesses form and why incidence varies under different scenarios.

ICASA is seeking letters of intent (LOI) for research supporting one of the following knowledge areas:

increased understanding of liver abscess pathobiology,
development of new models and
epidemiology and incidence.

Additionally, ICASA is also seeking diagnostic tools or technologies that enable informed decision-making regarding metaphylactic treatment, a practice in which a group of animals is treated at the same time to prevent the disease from spreading and affecting many animals.LOIs should be relevant to commercial production systems, breeds and management practices in the US.

ICASA encourages applicants to collaborate with commercial livestock producers, processors and allied industry. Applicants should also describe how the work will enhance responsible antibiotic use, reduce the potential for resistance and/or provide actionable information to antimicrobial-prescribers.

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Video: Four Star Pork Industry Conf - Back to Basics: Fundamentals drive vaccine performance

At a time when disease pressure continues to challenge pork production systems across the United States, vaccination remains one of the most valuable and heavily debated tools available to veterinarians and producers.

Speaking at the 2025 Four Star Pork Industry Conference in Muncie, Indiana, Dr. Daniel Gascho, veterinarian at Four Star Veterinary Service, encouraged the industry to return to fundamentals in how vaccines are selected, handled and administered across sow farms, gilt development units and grow-finish operations.

Gascho acknowledged at the outset that vaccination can quickly become a technical and sometimes tedious topic. But he said that real-world execution, not complex immunology, is where most vaccine failures occur.