Scientists from The Pirbright Institute are spearheading a 31 member consortium named ‘DEFEND’ which has been awarded €5.6 million by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme to study two viral diseases that are emerging into Europe; African swine fever (ASF) and lumpy skin disease (LSD).
New simple techniques created by scientists at The Pirbright Institute are able to detect the presence of foot-and-mouth disease virus from samples in the farm environment, even when susceptible animals are not showing clinical signs.
Researchers at The Pirbright Institute have developed a recombinant vaccine which is effective against Marek’s disease (MD) and infectious bursal disease (IBD) using a new viral vector. Both diseases are highly infectious associated with high mortality rates making them a constant threat to the productivity of the worldwide poultry industry for decades.
Researchers from The Pirbright Institute collaborated with the University of Oxford and the National Institutes of Health, USA, to show that S-FLU, a universal flu vaccine candidate, induces different immune responses in pigs compared to ferrets, raising the possibility that the ferrets may not give the whole picture and that pigs may more faithfully represent human influenza disease. The team also identified a type of T cell in pigs for the first time, which are able to rapidly help fight respiratory infections.
Researchers from The Pirbright Institute, University of Bristol, Cardiff University and University of Oxford have generated tools that allow scientists to understand a vital area of the pig immune system which was previously inaccessible.
Scientists at The Pirbright Institute have received money which will enable research into boosting vaccine yields by up to ten fold. The funding was awarded by the Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund which is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Global Affairs Canada (GAC), and Canada’s International Development Research Centre.
For the first time, researchers led by Professor Munir Iqbal at The Pirbright Institute have been able to insert protective avian influenza virus genes into the duck enteritis virus (DEV) vaccine by using a method of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing that allows higher rates of gene insertion. This makes the process more efficient and the resulting vaccine virus is able to protect ducks against both DEV and avian influenza.
Scientists at The Pirbright Institute have collaborated with the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and other research institutes* to uncover a new system used by the foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) to prevent antiviral signalling of infected cells. The discovery could allow scientists to detect animals that have been infected with FMDV and distinguish them from those that have been vaccinated.
Scientists at The Pirbright Institute have played a key role in providing assurance that the UK remains free from bluetongue following the positive test results of four cattle which had moved from France into the north of England and Scotland in October 2017 without sufficient vaccination proof.
Researchers at The Pirbright Institute have developed a new method of genetically modifying the Marek’s disease vaccine so it is also able to protect against other destructive poultry viruses such as infectious bursal disease (IBD), avian influenza or Newcastle disease.
® The Pirbright Institute 2018 | A company limited by guarantee, registered in England no. 559784. The Institute is also a registered charity.
