USDA APHIS PPQ’s Plant Pathogen Diagnostics Certification Program (PPDCP) is onboarding new labs for program participation.
Onboarding typically includes an introductory meeting, submitting records that demonstrate your lab’s established quality and biosafety systems, a virtual walkthrough, a “pretest” consisting of small sample sets, and finally, proficiency testing to certify the lab’s diagnosticians.
PPDCP certification is required for testing PPQ regulated samples. Program participation can strengthen your lab’s quality management and professional development systems and confirm to your stakeholders that your testing is consistent and accurate. Interested labs should email PPDCP@USDA.gov with information including the number and names of people requesting panels, the methods they are interested in (qPCR, conventional PCR, ELISA, manual DNA extraction, semi-automated DNA extraction), and how their lab interacts with regulatory surveys, trace events, or other regulatory sample activities.
Priority will be given to labs participating in support of PPQ surveys and the One Health ARPA-funded project “Protecting and Enhancing Plant Health by Building Capacity and Resilience of Plant Pest Diagnostic Capabilities”.
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We are also trying to get a list of all NPDN labs that are planning to apply to PPDCP, so we can better facilitate communication and coordination with the USDA-APHIS-PPQ program managers.
If you are an NPDN lab or partner lab and are planning to apply to PPDCP, please also sign up here so we can add you to our communication chain: Sign up here if you will be applying to PPDCP. Signing up to this NPDN list will help us coordinate as a group.
