The Institute for Animal Health (IAH), an institute of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council (BBSRC), is a unique national centre that works to enhance the UK capability to
contain, control, and eliminate viral diseases of animals through its highly innovative
fundamental and applied bioscience. We thereby support the competitiveness of UK livestock and
poultry producers, and improve the quality of life of both animals and people. One of our
strengths is that we study infectious diseases in the natural, farm animal hosts - cattle,
poultry, sheep and pigs.
A video
about the work of the Institute can be seen on the BBSRC’s website.
The Institute is currently situated on two campuses,
Pirbright Laboratory
in Surrey and Compton Laboratory in Berkshire. The process of transferring
Compton Laboratory
activities to Pirbright is underway.
We contribute to both national and international food security by the global reach of our world-class
bioscience and expert advice. This is in the context of the ever-changing nature of viral disease
threats stemming from the globalisation of trade, environmental change and expanding human and animal
populations. Viral diseases cause severe negative impacts on the health of livestock, food availability
and the prosperity of farmers and their rural communities - global problems that require global solutions.
Viral diseases pose a complex threat. Consequently, we bring a range of specialised fields to tackle
the problems including virology, molecular biology, immunology, epidemiology, entomology, pathology,
mathematical biology, genomics, bioinformatics, bioimaging, vaccinology and diagnostics.
Our research is directed not only to eliminating virus diseases once they have entered the UK, but also
to reducing them overseas, thereby minimising the threat to UK farmers whilst maintaining trade links and
food imports. Furthermore, our combination of innovative basic and applied research continues to result
in new vaccines and diagnostics in partnership with commercial companies. Our training programmes
contribute highly skilled people for UK bioscience businesses, in addition to overseas trainees who then
work more effectively to combat virus diseases in their native countries.
The impact of IAH's research is acknowledged around the globe. This is in part through contributing
diagnostic services
, expert analysis and advice through our partnerships with international bodies
such as the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE),
the European Food Safety Authority, and the UK's Department for International Development (DfID). In
collaboration with these organisations we made major contributions to the recently achieved
global eradication of cattle plague (rinderpest).
IAH Partnerships with
Within the UK our partners include Defra, farming and veterinary organisations, and animal health
companies. Successful partnerships such as these protected the UK from
bluetongue which was raging amongst
ruminants in neighbouring European countries in 2007. The IAH has scores of partnerships with universities
and research institutes within the UK and overseas, and with British government organisations, such as the
Veterinary Laboratories Agency.
The institute constitutes a unique national capability for the UK, providing high bio-containment level (CL)
4 laboratories, CL3 and CL4 animal experimentation facilities, and an insectary to combat newly emerging and
re-emerging insect-transmitted viruses. Furthermore, a new £100M+ state-of-the-art laboratory complex is under
construction at Pirbright to secure IAH’s place at the forefront of research on animal diseases.
State-of-the-art research laboratory
In addition to its staff and facilities, the institute has key biological resources such as genetically defined
lines of poultry and cattle and extensive reference collections of livestock and poultry viruses. IAH is therefore
a hub with academic and commercial links radiating to other centres within the UK and overseas that enable them
to utilise the institute’s unique facilities, resources and expertise to counter the threats posed to agriculture,
trade and animal health around the world.
In addition to our research and diagnostic output we communicate directly with
farmers at meetings, agricultural
events and articles in farming publications, and with the general public via the
media, and public engagement
activities, including with
school children.
The Institute is run by an
Institute Executive Board which reports to a
Trustee Board.
The Institute
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Pirbright
Pirbright Laboratory is situated near the village of Pirbright, near Guildford, Surrey. The focus of attention of the 173 employees, plus research students and visiting scientists is on exotic viruses, ones that do not normally affect the UK. The scientists at IAH Pirbright have expertise on these viruses that is unique within the UK. Pirbright offers training courses on the diagnosis of transboundary animal diseases, specifically foot-and-mouth disease, bluetongue and capripox.
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Compton
Compton Laboratory is situated within the village of Compton, near Newbury, Berkshire. It is at Compton Laboratory that we study disease-causing agents (pathogens) that are usually present (endemic) in the UK.
Compton Laboratory runs an annual two-week Poultry Health Course.
The Compton area is the home of the Institute's farm, which provides high quality animals for experiments, and operates on a commercial basis, including milk production.
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Farm
The Institute farm in the Compton area comprises 780 hectares of predominantly chalk downland descending into two alluvial/gravel valleys comprising the upper reaches of the Pang Valley, within the North Wessex Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Our fields are cropped with wheat, oil seed rape, spring barley, forage maize, lucerne and grass - a proportion of which goes to feed the farms herd of 450 Holstein Friesian dairy cows and flock of Dorset sheep.