Conversations from the Hall of Fame

Charles W. Beard , veterinary medical officer, interviewed 2005

(Time: ~10:39 minutes)

My name is Charles W. Beard and I began my career in ARS in 1965 at the Southeast Poultry Research Lab in Athens Georgia. I came there from graduate school at the University of Wisconsin.

I retired in 1993. I had 37 years of federal service and I began a new job, a new career, still in poultry but with the US Poultry and Egg Association. I was their vice-president for research and technology administering a research grants program. 

I was born in a town with some ARS fame, Tifton, Georgia down in south Georgia and left there as a baby really but eventually came back at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton for 
a year and went to the University of Georgia and was interested in becoming a veterinarian.  

So I enrolled at University of Georgia veterinary school and graduated there with a DVM. So my research interest really came about because of the military time that I served at Fort Detrick which was the US Army Biological Warfare Laboratories and I was a research veterinarian in one of the laboratories there and soon realized that if I wanted to do research I needed to get the ticket as they say a PhD and I went to the University of Wisconsin and pursued a graduate degree there and finished in 1965. 

One Being a Hall of Famer

Well, I'm absolutely delighted. You know I guess as you get older you need a few rewards in life and this is a good one. Because I've been selected for the ARS Hall of Fame and I'm such a fan of ARS and so supportive of their mission and having had a wonderful career in ARS I'm absolutely delighted they decided to recognized me in such a wonderful manner. 

While I am the recipient of the award, many people are really getting this award through me you know my teachers, my parents, my family, my major professor and then at Southeast Poultry the secretaries, the technicians, the animal care takers, my fellow scientists, all of those people I have named contributed to me getting this award. If you did not have great people to be associated with and to help you, you are not going to get any awards and so I have to acknowledge that I'm just the physical person standing here getting the award but the award is for the work and ideas of many great people that I had the good fortunate to work with. 

Coming to ARS 

When I went to the Southeast Poultry Research Lab from the University of Wisconsin, I had been working on New Castle disease at Wisconsin that's a disease of poultry that can be disastrous. It goes back to 1926 when it was first isolated in New Castle, England and I took those viruses down and I also took influenza viruses down from Wisconsin and where I had been working with Dr. Easterday, my major professor and I began a program of study on New Castle disease and avian influenza. And the avian influenza work ended up with a test, a lab test, for detecting antibodies against avian influenza virus and that was published in 1970. That test is still used world wide today as a test for antibodies for avian influenza. If you want a flock of poultry which you want to know has been free of avian influenza you do this very simple test on their serum and it is still regarded as the test for that purpose. 

I worked on the flu problem and with some great researchers like Max Brugh and who was a very bright scientist down there on avian flu and we were successful in coming up with some good information on vaccination with Dr. Henry Stone working on oil emulsion adjuvants and we had some good times with flu at a time when it really wasn't a problem. But fortunately the administrators in ARS allowed me to continue those efforts and continued to fund this because we felt it had great potential for the industry and for society and it turns out if you read the newspapers today you realize that we were right on target. 

In 1997, H5N1 began to infect people and in fact it killed about a third of the people it infected. And it has a lot of influenza experts really up tight because they are afraid that a reassortant or a genetic shuffling can occur if someone is infected with both the H5N1 and also the ordinary Hong Kong H3 that we get every year. And a new virus would emerge that could do two things: it could kill like the current H5H1 kills people, which is about a 50% mortality now, incredible but that can spread like the H3 that we get vaccinated against each year. So if you get a new virus that can spread like the H3and kill like the H5 that is the pandemic that they are talking about in the press that everyone is so concerned about. 

The disastrous consequences of such an eventuality justify the excitement and the concern because it would be a catastrophic experience. It justifies very close attention and good preparation on the part of everyone–government, universities, public health; we need to get ready and it may not happen but the consequences of it happening, if it does happen are so severe you can't take a chance. You got to be prepared. 

Strengthening Molecular Studies 

Before I left I hired a scientist, Dr. Perdue who brought a molecular aspect into the research program down there and did a great job of beginning to use molecular virology in the study of avian influenza and after I left Dr. Swayne, who is the current lab director, hired Dr. Suarez who is a molecular virologist. He came in and expanded and continued on Dr. Perdue's program and with Swayne and more molecular types coming into the laboratory they have really done some good work understanding the fundamental aspects of virulence of avian influenza and what makes it tick. So the real answer I think is going to depend upon a continuation of those molecular studies and getting a better understanding of the virus. 

Good Place to Work? 

Well my history is a statement in itself. I came to ARS in 1965 and I left in 93. I spent my entire research career with ARS. There are several reasons. We had good research funds available, we had good equipment available, we had good facilities and if we didn't have good facilities we were allowed to improve the facilities. 

And then we had good peers. We had great people to associate with. We had great fellow scientists really wonderful people, we had good support staff and we were a family--our secretaries, our  technicians, our animal care takers--we were a family and so and by that I mean almost literally with picnics in the summer time and we knew everybody's children a wonderful setting but when you have good people that you work with there's a good atmosphere and you can really get some  things done and you can learn from each other and what I did is justification for saying at ARS is a great place to work. I stayed there for my entire career. I didn't move. I would suggest it to anyone interested in doing research.

The Future 

We have to be careful that research doesn't get shoved aside as we get into other crises in society.  Because research is a long term solution to a lot of problems and if you ever let an urgent problem today push research aside or cut back on research you are hurting yourself over the long run. Because research today provides the information you need in the future and I think that's one of the reasons this country is so great. We've had a great research program. We have good graduate schools that educate people and there is no substitute for research and I'm delighted to have been a part of ARS. I'm so appreciative of everyone that had anything to do with it and I can't strongly enough urge the support of research. You got to have research and you need new scientists coming down the stream.