When a deadly disease that was killing millions of piglets suddenly arrived in the United States in 2013, no one was sure at first what was happening.

It looked like the illness, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, might be moving across the country in pig feed—but that had never happened with a virus before. For an expert in swine nutrition, it was an intriguing case. Jason Woodworth, at the time a new faculty member at Kansas State University, scrambled to put together a team and get to the bottom of it. But once he had the veterinarians, virologists, and diagnostic experts he needed, he confronted another problem: There was no money available to support rapid-response research.

“Quick action isn’t possible through