Livestock Diseases Programme

Infectious diseases of livestock cause major economic losses both in the UK and worldwide, and have a major impact on animal health and welfare, and food security. Some infectious diseases (zoonoses) are spread from livestock to humans and represent a risk to human health. Recent scientific advances include knowledge of the complete genome sequences of many disease-causing agents (pathogens) and the livestock hosts that they infect. This offers enormous potential for improving our understanding of how these pathogens cause disease and the mechanisms used by the hosts to resist and eliminate them. This will lead to better disease control strategies.

This programme focuses on economically important viral and bacterial diseases of livestock. These include bovine tuberculosis (bTB), which is endemic in cattle in the UK and is increasing in incidence. The bacterial pathogens Salmonella enterica and enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli are zoonotic diarrhoeal pathogens of worldwide importance. Human infections stem from bacterial persistence in the intestines of foodproducing animals and may have life-threatening consequences. Bovine mastitis is a major cause of economic loss in the dairy industry. Due to the painful nature of the infection and the remaining high incidence of disease, mastitis was recognised by the Farm Animal Welfare Council to be the infectious disease which most impacted on the welfare of dairy cattle.

Respiratory infections of livestock are a major animal welfare problem and pose a considerable financial burden to UK agriculture. It is estimated that up to 1.9 million cattle are affected by respiratory disease each year, and bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) is the single most important respiratory viral pathogen of calves. Viruses which are exotic to the UK including African swine fever virus (ASFV), classical swine fever virus (CSFV), peste de petits ruminants virus (PPRV) and Nairobi sheep disease virus (NSDV) cause large economic losses and are a major cause of poverty worldwide. If introduced to the UK these exotic viruses would result in serious health and welfare problems, animal movement restrictions and huge loss of trade.

The aims of the programme are to understand: how pathogens invade and replicate in their hosts, and how this results in disease; how pathogens subvert host functions to avoid elimination; the host mechanisms involved in resisting infection and developing protective immune responses; and to define the parts of pathogens that induce protective immune responses. Together these approaches will lead to the development of improved vaccines and other control measures.

 

Programme Leader: Dr Linda Dixon
Deputy Programme Leader: Dr Geraldine Taylor

The Programme consists of the following Workpackages and Principal Investigators:

WP1 African swine fever - Linda Dixon, Paul Monaghan, Haru Takamatsu, Geraldine Taylor
WP2 RNA viruses - Michael Baron, Tom Barrett, Geraldine Taylor
WP3 Enteric bacteria -Mark Stevens
WP4 Bovine tuberculosis -Tracey Coffey, Jayne Hope
WP5 Mastitis - Tracey Coffey, Mark Stevens
WP6 Bovine innate immunity -Tracey Coffey, Jayne Hope, Shirley Ellis
WP7 Bovine adaptive immunity -Bryan Charleston, Tracey Coffey, Shirley Ellis, Jayne Hope, Geraldine Taylor
WP8 Genetics - Tracey Coffey, Shirley Ellis