Recipient organisationMoredun Research InstituteSource-published name: Moredun Research Institute
Funding£1.8M
PeriodAug 2022 — Aug 2027
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Pigs, sheep, and goats are losing pregnancies to four bacterial and viral diseases that cost the livestock sector billions each year and can spill over into humans. Current vaccines and diagnostic tests for these infections are inadequate—they fail to protect across different strains, cannot distinguish a vaccinated animal from an infected one, or are not yet ready for commercial use. REPRODIVAC will design and test next-generation vaccines and companion diagnostic tools for PRRS, Q fever, ovine enzootic abortion, and porcine brucellosis. The consortium will use structural biology to select protective antigens, produce them in plant and microbial systems, and develop live attenuated and viral-vectored vaccines. They will also create serological and molecular tests, including point-of-care versions that tell farmers whether an animal is truly infected or simply vaccinated. If successful, the project will give the livestock industry broadly protective PRRS vaccines, a validated Q fever subunit vaccine with a DIVA test, a refined commercial OEA vaccine, and improved *Brucella suis* vaccines with more specific diagnostics. These tools would reduce abortion rates, cut antibiotic use, and lower zoonotic risk—improving both animal welfare and public health without requiring farmers to overhaul their existing systems.
View original technical description
Endemic and zoonotic infectious reproductive diseases of livestock cause major economic losses globally and threaten both food security and public health. REPRODIVAC will develop new and improved vaccines and diagnostic tools required to better control four priority abortifacient diseases: porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), Q fever, ovine enzootic abortion (OEA), and porcine brucellosis. The consortium spans academia and industry with complementary expertise including structural biology, microbiology, immunology, plant and veterinary sciences. This enables us to address reproductive disorders with an interdisciplinary approach: (1) applying reverse and structural vaccinology to select and design vaccine and diagnostic candidate antigens; (2) exploiting relevant protein expression systems for the production of these antigens; (3) producing rationally attenuated and viral vectored vaccines; and (4) developing a suite of molecular and immunological diagnostic tests, including point-of-care tests (PoC) to discriminate vaccinated from infected animals (DIVA). We will develop a broadly protective PRRSV vaccine, and a serological ELISA that will reliably correlate with PRRSV neutralising antibody titres. We will identify protective subunit vaccine candidates for Q fever and validate a companion serological DIVA test. We will further refine an OEA vaccine for commercialisation and pursue a complementary approach towards a DIVA-compatible next-generation subunit vaccine and serological and molecular DIVA/PoC tests. We will develop live attenuated Brucella suis vaccines and brucellosis diagnostic tests with improved specificity. These new vaccines and diagnostics will be further developed by our industrial partners and made accessible to users. Thereby by using the latest technologies in vaccine and diagnostic development REPRODIVAC will improve animal health and welfare, productivity and sustainability of the livestock sector, as well as human health.
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