Vallat now heads a world organization responsible for improving animal health, and his work is more important than ever. Increasing globalization and population have fostered the spread of diseases capable of worsening poverty and hunger and threatening human health.

Last night, in a ceremony at the University of Pennsylvania, he received the first Penn Vet World Award, a $100,000 unrestricted prize funded by the Vernon and Shirley Hill Foundation.

Vallat, who lives in Paris, where the World Organization for Animal Health is based, "has changed the face of veterinary medicine," expanding beyond animal care, Alan M. Kelly, dean emeritus of the Penn veterinary school, said in an interview.

Kelly, who chaired the selection panel, said that Vallat had worked effectively with world health, food, agriculture and financial organizations to help developing countries increase their standards of animal care and make their products export-worthy.

"These are substantial contributions," Kelly said. "It's agricultural exports that more than anything lift a developing country out of poverty."

Vallat noted that one billion people worldwide need small animals for their survival - for milk for their children, food for the table, or as income through exports.

"That is why fighting an animal disease fights poverty," he said in an interview before the awards ceremony.

He counts among his organization's successes the elimination of rhinderpest, which over centuries across the globe has killed millions of cattle and, as a result, humans, who subsequently died of hunger.

After vaccines eradicated the virus from its last stronghold in Somalia - the civil war had prevented veterinarians from working there - "we are quite sure the virus has disappeared," he said. He expects "in three years, max" to prove it.

But now, because of globalization, pathogens have new avenues of invasion. With climate change, they can survive in new places.

Vallat and others now battle foot-and-mouth disease, which affects pigs and cattle, goats, sheep and other ruminants in 150 countries and could worsen food shortages. Vallat thinks controlling it will be a 50-year quest.

His organization also faces the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which crossed three continents in two years and has resulted in at least 240 human deaths since 2003. With increasing population, world health officials expect to see more such "zoonotic" diseases that leap from animals to humans.

Last year, Vallat was a key player in devising standards for countries with mad cow disease. That made it easier for meat importers to know when the disease poses a danger, said Leon Russell, president of the World Veterinary Association and another member of the selection committee.

Vernon Hill said he hoped the award would raise the profile of the veterinary profession, increasingly vital "as the lines between human health and animal health cross more and more."

Similar $100,000 awards went to two Penn veterinary students.

Rachel Toaff-Rosenstein, of Bala Cynwyd, plans to use the money for postgraduate study in animal welfare.

Warren Waybright, of Gettysburg, wants to develop a veterinary outreach program in South America.

Vallat hasn't decided what he's going to do with the money.

But the man who grew up on a farm and figures he knew from birth what he would do as an adult smiled as he talked about one of his three grown children.

She wants to have a farm.

He thinks he might be able to help her.