Low Containment
Lead Research Organisation:
The Pirbright Institute
Department Name: UNLISTED
Abstract
Low containment experimental facilities support, enhance and extend the range of viruses studied at the Pirbright Institute. The primary infrastructure associated with these facilities is the BBSRC National Centre for Vaccinology, the Jenner Building, which was opened in 2016. This facility houses a wide range of groups working on strategically important endemic and exotic viral pathogens that can be handled under low containment, including Marek’s disease virus, infectious bronchitis virus and low pathogenicity animal influenzas. In addition, the Jenner building also houses groups that study the genetics and genomics of virus hosts, using state of the art technologies. This capability is nationally unique both because it supports studies of viruses not replicated elsewhere in the UK and because of its position in close proximity to High Containment Experimental Facilities in Pirbright.
Our in vivo facilities supporting avian research are housed in a temporary facility. This enables study of internationally important avian viruses within the natural host. During the term of the CCG, new facilities will be constructed on the Pirbright site, enabling expansion of this work. This includes a specified pathogen free (SPF) hatchery and rearing facility due for delivery in early 2018 and refurbishment of current high containment animal facilities to deliver a low containment Poultry Experimental Facility in late 2018.
The Low Containment National Capability has been used to address COVID-19 related challenges from 1 April 2020.
Our in vivo facilities supporting avian research are housed in a temporary facility. This enables study of internationally important avian viruses within the natural host. During the term of the CCG, new facilities will be constructed on the Pirbright site, enabling expansion of this work. This includes a specified pathogen free (SPF) hatchery and rearing facility due for delivery in early 2018 and refurbishment of current high containment animal facilities to deliver a low containment Poultry Experimental Facility in late 2018.
The Low Containment National Capability has been used to address COVID-19 related challenges from 1 April 2020.
Organisations
- The Pirbright Institute, United Kingdom (Lead Research Organisation)
- University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Institute of Zoology (Collaboration)
- University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Collaboration)
- Mayo Clinic (Collaboration)
- Huvepharma (Collaboration)
- University of Malaya, Malaysia (Collaboration)
- University of California Davis, United States (Collaboration)
- University of Nigeria (Collaboration)
- Animal and Plant Health Agency (Collaboration)
- Horizon Discovery Group plc (Collaboration)
- University of Cambridge (Collaboration)
- University of Liverpool, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Gift Of Life (Collaboration)
- University of Pennsylvania, United States (Collaboration)
- Babraham Institute (Collaboration)
- International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) (Collaboration)
- Stanford University, United States (Collaboration)
- Diamond Light Source, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Friedrich Loeffler Institute (Collaboration)
- National Taiwan University, Taiwan, Province of China (Collaboration)
- University of Minnesota, United States (Collaboration)
- University of Melbourne, Australia (Collaboration)
- Leibniz Association (Collaboration)
- University of Nottingham (Collaboration)
- Aerogen (Collaboration)
- MSD Animal Health, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Collaboration)
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Collaboration)
- University of Bristol, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- London Sch of Hygiene and Trop Medicine, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- University of Glasgow, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Distributed Bio. (Collaboration)
- Technical University of Denmark (Collaboration)
- National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) Taiwan (Collaboration)
- University of Greenwich, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- University of Tartu, Estonia (Collaboration)
- University of Copenhagen, Denmark (Collaboration)
- The Pirbright Institute, WOKING (Collaboration)
- National Institute of Genetics (Collaboration)
- University of Sussex, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Brunel University London, Uxbridge (Collaboration)
- Texas A&M University-Central Texas (Collaboration)
- Eco Animal Health Ltd (Collaboration)
- Polytechnic University of Valencia (Collaboration)
- Washington State University, United States (Collaboration)
- Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) (Collaboration)
- Lancaster University (Collaboration)
- University of Lleida, Spain (Collaboration)
- National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) (Collaboration)
- Public Health England, Salisbury (Collaboration)
- Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) (Collaboration)
- Enesi Pharma (Collaboration)
- University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover (Collaboration)
- University of Essex, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Rosalind Franklin Institute (Collaboration)
- Wageningen University & Research (Collaboration)
- University of Parma, Italy (Collaboration)
- St. Andrews University (Collaboration)
- Unlisted (Collaboration)
- Outreach Network for Gene Drive Research (Collaboration)
- Cardiff University, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- University of Kent, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich (Collaboration)
- University of Queensland, Australia (Collaboration)
- Aviagen (Collaboration)
- Bern University of Applied Sciences (Collaboration)
- Pennsylvania State University, United States (Collaboration)
- University of Guelph, Canada (Collaboration)
- University of Warwick, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Zoological Soc London Inst of Zoology, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Free University of Berlin, Germany (Collaboration)
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Queen's University of Belfast, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- French National Institute of Agricultural Research (Collaboration)
- University of York, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- University of Leeds, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- University of Surrey, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Collaboration)
- U.S. Department of Agriculture USDA (Collaboration)
- Kenyan Institute for Medical Research (KEMRI) (Collaboration)
- Royal Veterinary College, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Leidos (Collaboration)
- Ulster University (Collaboration)
Publications
.Baron M
(2018)
Recent advances in viral vectors in veterinary vaccinology
in Current Opinion in Virology
Abdullah N
(2018)
Structure-Guided Identification of a Nonhuman Morbillivirus with Zoonotic Potential.
in Journal of virology
Alber A
(2021)
The bird's immune response to avian pathogenic Escherichia coli.
in Avian pathology : journal of the W.V.P.A
Ali M
(2019)
Avian Influenza A(H9N2) Virus in Poultry Worker, Pakistan, 2015.
in Emerging infectious diseases
Altan E
(2018)
Molecular characterization of Peste des petits ruminants viruses in the Marmara Region of Turkey
in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases
Anderson MAE
(2020)
Expanding the CRISPR Toolbox in Culicine Mosquitoes: In Vitro Validation of Pol III Promoters.
in ACS synthetic biology
Anderson ME
(2019)
CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in the West Nile Virus vector, Culex quinquefasciatus Say.
in PloS one
Ang JX
(2022)
Considerations for homology-based DNA repair in mosquitoes: Impact of sequence heterology and donor template source.
in PLoS genetics
Bacigalupo SA
(2020)
Towards a unified generic framework to define and observe contacts between livestock and wildlife: a systematic review.
in PeerJ
| Description | The key development within low containment science at The Pirbright Institute is that of providing facilities that allow handling of non-infectious and low pathogenicity agents within laboratories and a range of desk based activities including bioinformatics and epidemiological modelling. The facilities are required to integrate with high-containment buildings on site and also provide areas for analyses of data from experiments and are expected to be safe for the user and environment and experience minimal interruptions to work through infrastructure works. These objectives have been achieved in the following ways: 1) Interruptions to science are within the boundaries set for the facilities. The BBSRC National Vaccinology Centre: The Jenner Building is part of the planned preventative maintenance schedule and is now at capacity for science, supporting low containment studies and the majority of Avian researchers. 2) The Houghton poultry facility (Specified Pathogen Free hatchery) and Pirbright remains a hub for Avian research as demonstrated by the production of publications, outreach activities and interactions with industry. These will be complemented by high-containment space for avian studies in the Biggs facility which is due to open in 2022. 3) Relationships with the National Avian Research Facility remain open and were reinforced by meetings that included BBSRC (UKRI) members. 4) Bioinformatics capabilities have been strengthened significantly with expansion and upgrade of computing facilities and staff, the latter provisioned from the Science Services CCG component. 5) Significant progress has been made in opening up the low containment facilities for training and also in provision of outreach activities. 6) Insectary facilities, which have seen a significant rise in demand in the reporting period within the science conducted by Pirbright, have been expanded via refurbishment of the IS4L facility followed by three major successful bids for refurbishment in 2019, 2020 and 2021. This is a medium term, interim solution. Reliability of the Philip Mellor Insectary has improved substantially in the reporting period due to planned preventative maintenance and more recently a major shutdown refurbishment in 2021. In total >170 peer-reviewed publications and >430 engagement activities have been enabled by this infrastructure, including a major focus on Avian research and viruses spread by arthropod vectors. |
| Exploitation Route | By acting as a hub for fundamental avian viral research, Pirbright provides disease information and expertise for a variety of high-consequence endemic viruses including Marek's disease virus. Through the use of scientific networks these areas are both extended and enhanced by external researchers, in addition to being provided to policy makers for outbreak scenario planning. In addition, a significant proportion of studies are aimed at modifying or creating vaccines that are used in the poultry sector which entails successful translation to use in industry. Bioinformatic outputs in open access databases and journals are available to workers worldwide and are a valuable resource for comparative studies of both phylogenetics and immunology. Facilities supporting insect rearing and analysis are largely focused on mosquitoes and biting midges which are supplied to both internal and external users. Studies using genetic modification of mosquitoes are part of a vanguard of research using emerging technologies that may be applicable across multiple hosts and scenarios. Hence technologies developed at Pirbright may inform global researchers in this subject area. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
| Description | The findings of research on both avian and arthropod interactions with viruses have an impact on fundamental science and underpin global research in these subject areas. Within the avian research, there is also a significant use in global policy decision making regarding viruses of Poultry with contributions to both working groups on disease control and the production of vaccines. Bioinformatic studies conducted form part of global databases that enable comparative studies of hosts and vectors carried out by researchers worldwide and can additionally information regarding the origin and spread of virus outbreaks in the case of avian studies. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2017 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | BBSRC 18ALERT panel member |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Impact | Provision of multi-user equipment to core facilities to enable BBSRC remit science. Part of the remit for this call was to allow shared access from other institutions, widening the impact of BBSRC investment. |
| Description | BBSRC ALERT19 panel member (invited) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Impact | Panel for ALERT18 multi-user equipment award by BBSRC |
| Description | BBSRC-Newton Fund Agricultural Data Re-use Advisory Group |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Impact | Advice on re-usability of data generated in research projects. |
| Description | Bioimaging Steering Group |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | Better management of workload and facility internally |
| Description | Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations Nipah Taskforce Member |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Description | Contributed to Chief Medical Officers report- Genomics section |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
| URL | https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6310... |
| Description | Contribution to a POSTnote on 'Reducing UK Antibiotic Use in Animals' |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Description | Data on SARS-COV-2 antigenicity for government committees, e.g. UKHSA variant technical group, NERVtag |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
| Impact | This information was routinely fed into UKHSA and government decision making on managing the Covid-19 pandemic |
| Description | EFSA GMO Gene Drive WG Hearing Expert |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Impact | Hearing Expert for EFSA GMO Gene Drive Working Group. Investigated environmental risk assessment of gene drive organisms relative to "conventional" GMOs. Led to report on subject https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/efsa-advises-risk-assessment-engineered-gene-drives |
| URL | https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/efsa-advises-risk-assessment-engineered-gene-drives |
| Description | Grants Review Team |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | More effective inclusion of microscopy technology in grants submitted from the Institute |
| Description | Human Infection Challenge Models for Vaccination |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | IUCN Assessment of Synthetic Biology and Biodiversity Conservation |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| URL | https://www.iucn.org/theme/science-and-economics/our-work/other-work/synthetic-biology-and-biodivers... |
| Description | IUCN Technical Subgroup on Synthetic Biology and Biodiversity Conservation |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Description | Inter-institute imaging network |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Description | Invited member of RCaH Science Advisory Board |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Impact | The Research Complex at Harwell is a UKRI funded building with the remit of enabling researchers across many disciplines to take advantage of the national facilities on the Harwell campus. RCaH is going through significant change at the moment and the advisory board has been asked to contribute to defining its future direction. |
| Description | MSc research training |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The immediate outcome of this impact activity is that these Masters students went on to the following subsequent career destinations: PhD programme: 2 students Technical position in research institution: 1 student |
| Description | Member of RMS EM Section committee |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | This committee informs the RMS on which areas to invest funds in regarding training, conferences, outreach events. RMS members are international. |
| Description | Member of the Board of the Jenner Vaccine Foundation |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | Helping with the strategic decisions of the Board of the Jenner Vaccine Foundation |
| Description | Member of the Virus Division for the Microbiology Society |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Description | Microbiology Society Members Panel |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| URL | https://microbiologysociety.org/why-microbiology-matters/council-governance/standing-panels/members-... |
| Description | Microbiology Society Policy Committee |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Description | Netherlands Commission on Genetic Modification (COGEM) Project "Gene drives, inventory of previous research and experience" |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Gave evidence to a government review |
| Description | POSTnote Report on Climate and vector-diseases in humans in the UK |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Gave evidence to a government review |
| Description | PPR Global Research and Expertise Network (PPR GREN) membership (OIE/FAO) |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Description | Publication policy document for core facilities - EM-UK |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | I am a founder member of the network created for electron microscopists within UK, EM-UK. The annual meeting is highly productive, and training and managing core facilities is regularly discussed. Recognition of these facilities is essential for their continued existence so we produced a generic document hosted on the RMS website which can be adopted by any core facility in any institution, and describes the publication policy which users had to adhere to. This has already raised the profile of core facilities around the country and is a successful outcome from the EM-UK meetings. |
| Description | RCUK Engagement workshop, Cosener's House, 20-21 April 2017 |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Royal Microscopical Society Training Focussed Interest Group |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | A review of the microscopy training courses available globally has been undertaken. We are in the process of collating and preparing a gap analysis. This will be used to guide RMS policy on training provided in the UK, both UK and international delegates. |
| Description | Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies Exercise (Royal Society: 11/06/19): Examined simulated emergence of arbovirus in the UK with main decision making bodies and personnel. |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Gave evidence to a government review |
| Description | Training MSc students |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Delivered a new training session to MSc students teaching viral quantification assays. This lead to a greater understanding of laboratory techniques and academic research. |
| Description | WHO R&D Blueprint Roadmaps: Consultation on Nipah virus |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a advisory committee |
| Description | A One Health Approach to Alkhumra Haemorrhagic Fever Virus Species Tropism, Pathogenesis and Epidemiology |
| Amount | £99,082 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 04/2026 |
| Description | A One Health approach to pan-valent morbillivirus vaccines |
| Amount | £773,237 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/R019843/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2018 |
| End | 03/2021 |
| Description | Active and passive Immunity induced by aerosols |
| Amount | £100,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/R506448/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2017 |
| End | 08/2021 |
| Description | An immunogenetic approach to guide the need for booster shots and combat immune failure in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine response |
| Amount | £987,464 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | MR/W020629/1 |
| Organisation | Medical Research Council (MRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2021 |
| End | 08/2022 |
| Description | Antigenic characterisation of infectious bursal disease virus to improve vaccination strategies and vaccine design |
| Amount | £450,685 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/S014594/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2019 |
| End | 12/2021 |
| Description | Assessing the functionality of avian BST2 as a viral restriction factor. |
| Amount | £50,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2021 |
| End | 09/2025 |
| Description | Assessment of the immunogenicity of bovine herpesvirus 4-based vectors delivering Nipah virus glycoproteins in swine |
| Amount | £41,895 (GBP) |
| Organisation | European Commission |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | European Union (EU) |
| Start | 02/2019 |
| End | 04/2019 |
| Description | Aviagen Industry Funding |
| Amount | £422,383 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Aviagen Group |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 08/2019 |
| End | 12/2020 |
| Description | BBSRC - responsive mode |
| Amount | £187,370 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/S007911/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2019 |
| End | 03/2022 |
| Description | BBSRC IAA The Pirbright Institute |
| Amount | £300,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/S506680/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2018 |
| End | 03/2021 |
| Description | BBSRC Newton Fund Swine and Poultry Research Initiative |
| Amount | £865,623 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/R01275X/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2018 |
| End | 06/2021 |
| Description | British Egg Marketing Board PhD studentship |
| Amount | £76,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | British Egg Marketing Board |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2018 |
| End | 09/2022 |
| Description | Broad and effective protection against influenza achieved by viral vectored vaccines |
| Amount | £1,607,691 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | MR/S037160/1 |
| Organisation | Medical Research Council (MRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2019 |
| End | 04/2022 |
| Description | Commonwealth Scholarship. Molecular determinants impacting avian influenza H9N2 virus evolution, replication fitness and virulence |
| Amount | £200,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | LKCS-2019- 665 |
| Organisation | British Council |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2019 |
| End | 10/2022 |
| Description | Components of the Medea gene drive system in a mosquito Aedes aegypti |
| Amount | £1,209,348 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/S001964/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2018 |
| End | 10/2021 |
| Description | Coronavirus regulation of cellular antiviral responses and cross species transmission |
| Amount | £52,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 09/2026 |
| Description | DARPA PREEMPT |
| Amount | $2,700,000 (USD) |
| Organisation | Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 09/2018 |
| End | 03/2022 |
| Description | Defining the circadian clock in chicken cells and its impact upon viral replication |
| Amount | £4,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Houghton Trust |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2019 |
| End | 11/2020 |
| Description | Defining the molecular signature of pericyte dysfunction in severe dengue patients |
| Amount | $20,000 (USD) |
| Organisation | UGPN |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Start | 09/2020 |
| End | 07/2021 |
| Description | Dengue haemorrhage: a novel role for perivascular cells |
| Amount | £74,137 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Surrey |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2021 |
| End | 09/2024 |
| Description | Development of next generation vaccine technology inducing rapid and strong immunity through targeted delivery of antigens to chicken immune cells |
| Amount | £473,080 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/T013087/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 05/2020 |
| End | 05/2023 |
| Description | Development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies for coronaviruses |
| Amount | £120,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 09/2026 |
| Description | Dissecting the molecular pathways of MDV oncoprotein Meq for understanding pathogenesis and aid vaccine development |
| Amount | £440,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/R007896/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2018 |
| End | 03/2021 |
| Description | Enhancing protective efficacy of avian influenza vaccines through targeted delivery of protective antigens to chicken immune cells |
| Amount | £98,212 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/R50595X/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2017 |
| End | 09/2021 |
| Description | FLI- TPI joint PhD studentships Avian influenza immunology markers. |
| Amount | £100,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Friedrich Loeffler Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | Germany |
| Start | 06/2018 |
| End | 06/2022 |
| Description | Further development of infectious bronchitis virus vaccines adapted for production in cell culture |
| Amount | £262,701 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/R019576/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2018 |
| End | 03/2020 |
| Description | G2P-UK; A National Virology Consortium to address phenotypic consequences of SARSCoV-2 genomic variation |
| Amount | £2,497,230 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | MR/W005611/1 |
| Organisation | Medical Research Council (MRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2021 |
| End | 07/2022 |
| Description | Genomia Project Grant |
| Amount | £174,052 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Genomia fund |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2019 |
| End | 01/2020 |
| Description | Global characterisation of interlinked mosquito immune networks |
| Amount | £9,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2021 |
| End | 03/2022 |
| Description | How does the lung protect itself against influenza? |
| Amount | £120,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2022 |
| End | 07/2026 |
| Description | Identification and evaluation of swine mAbs in pig influenza challenge model |
| Amount | $599,944 (USD) |
| Funding ID | OPP1201470 |
| Organisation | Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 09/2018 |
| End | 10/2019 |
| Description | Identification of interaction sites between the genomic segments of influenza virus as putative novel anti-viral targets |
| Amount | £100,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2019 |
| End | 09/2024 |
| Description | In vitro evaluation of peptide-based immune checkpoint inhibitors as potential molecular adjuvants for improved PRRS vaccines |
| Amount | £4,921 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2019 |
| End | 03/2020 |
| Description | Internal Seed Fund- Development of an IBDV diagnostic test that can differentiate infected from vaccinated animals, for use in surveillance. |
| Amount | £10,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2019 |
| End | 02/2020 |
| Description | LVIF |
| Amount | $1,500,000 (CAD) |
| Organisation | Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 03/2018 |
| End | 09/2020 |
| Description | NC3Rs Research Project Grant |
| Amount | £436,339 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | NC/R001138/1 |
| Organisation | National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2017 |
| End | 11/2019 |
| Description | Newton Fund: UK-China-Philippines-Thailand Swine and Poultry Research Initiative |
| Amount | £841,995 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/R012679/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2018 |
| End | 12/2020 |
| Description | PRCV model to better understand immunity to SARS-CoV2 |
| Amount | £50,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2021 |
| End | 03/2022 |
| Description | Pathfinder BB/R012431/1 Grant holder: Dr Mark Fife. Grant title: chIFITM knockdown/knockout technology as a platform technology for increased vaccine yields in SPF Eggs. |
| Amount | £12,500 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/R012431/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2017 |
| End | 02/2018 |
| Description | Pirbright Institute Flexible Talent Mobility Account |
| Amount | £180,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/S507945/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2018 |
| End | 03/2021 |
| Description | Protecting poultry from avian influenza, Newcastle disease, infectious bronchitis, and Gumboro disease with a single dose of a multivalent vaccine |
| Amount | £448,937 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/W003325/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2022 |
| End | 12/2023 |
| Description | Recombinant pseudorabies virus as a multivalent vectored vaccine platform for emerging and endemic porcine diseases |
| Amount | £80,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2020 |
| End | 09/2024 |
| Description | Reducing the Economic and Zoonotic Impact of Avian Influenza (REZIAI): delivering novel vaccines and diagnostics from laboratory to the field. |
| Amount | £400,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/S013792/1 |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2019 |
| End | 01/2021 |
| Description | SOMAmer technology to diagnose coronavirus infection: veterinary and zoonotic implications |
| Amount | £1 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2021 |
| End | 09/2025 |
| Description | Seed Catalyst Award |
| Amount | £25,527 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ISCF-TFPSA-Pirbright |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2018 |
| End | 02/2019 |
| Description | Taiwan Partnering Award |
| Amount | £40,700 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/S020624/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | The Global Challenges Research Fund |
| Amount | £640,473 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Research Councils UK (RCUK) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2019 |
| End | 03/2024 |
| Description | The Pirbright Livestock Antibody Hub |
| Amount | $5,500,000 (USD) |
| Organisation | Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 11/2019 |
| End | 11/2024 |
| Description | The genetic and functional analysis of variation in innate immune genes associated with restriction of influenza virus for chicken lines |
| Amount | £422,383 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Aviagen Group |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 01/2020 |
| End | 03/2021 |
| Description | The impact of natural genetic variation on ruminant immune responses |
| Amount | £80,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Southampton |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2018 |
| End | 09/2022 |
| Description | Towards a novel multivalent poultry vaccine: Development of a recombinant infectious bursal disease vectored vaccine encoding conserved B- and T- cell epitopes from infectious bronchitis virus |
| Amount | £5,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Houghton Trust |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2019 |
| End | 11/2020 |
| Description | UK-China partnership on Global Food Security: Combating avian tumor diseases for sustainable poultry proudction |
| Amount | £382,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/R007632/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2018 |
| End | 03/2020 |
| Description | Understanding the importance of the PI3K pathway in modulating influenza virus replication in chickens and ducks |
| Amount | £100,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2021 |
| End | 04/2025 |
| Description | [YY-EEID US-UK XXXX] Evaluating how immunosuppression influences influenza A virus transmission and evolution in wild and domestic birds |
| Amount | £606,360 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/T008806/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 05/2019 |
| End | 06/2023 |
| Description | iCASE studentship: Production and assessment of antiviral prophylactic properties of natural biomolecules against avian influenza and Newcastle disease viruses affecting poultry |
| Amount | £100,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2019 |
| End | 09/2023 |
| Title | A ligation and restriction enzyme independent cloning technique: an alternative to conventional methods for cloning hard-to-clone gene segments in the influenza reverse genetics system |
| Description | we developed an easy and efficient ligation and restriction enzyme independent (LREI) cloning method for cloning influenza gene segments into pHW2000 vector. The method involves amplification of megaprimers followed by PCR amplification of megaprimers using a bait plasmid, DpnI digestion and transformation. ligation and restriction enzyme independent (LREI) cloning method represents an alternative strategy for cloning influenza gene segments that have internal restriction sites for the enzymes used in reverse genetics. Further, the problem of genetic instability in bacteria can be alleviated by growing recombinant bacterial cultures at a lower temperature. This technique can be applied to clone any influenza gene segment using universal primers, which would help in the rapid generation of influenza viruses and facilitate influenza research and vaccine development. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The method will help in the rapid generation of reverse genetic base influenza viruses and facilitate influenza research and vaccine development. |
| URL | https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12985-020-01358-2 |
| Title | A male-specific cell line from a mosquito Anopheles gambiae |
| Description | A new male-specific cell line from a mosquito Anopheles gambiae has been isolated from sexed neonate larvae. To our knowledge this is the only cell line derived exclusively from male mosquitoes. |
| Type Of Material | Cell line |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The cell line will greatly facilitate studies on components of the sex determination pathway and of dosage compensation machinery in mosquitoes. There are only several cell lines derived from Anopheles gambiae available and these are female-like. Over-expression of genes involved in male sex determination or dosage compensation is detrimental to female cells, hence use of male-derived cells is necessary for such studies. The cell line will become available upon acceptance of a manuscript describing characterization of that cell line. |
| Title | An ex vivo IBDV infection model using a chicken primary B cell culture system |
| Description | Recently, it has become possible to culture chicken primary B cells in vitro in the presence of a soluble construct of chicken CD40L that was made at The Pirbright Institute. We have demonstrated that these chicken primary B cells can be infected with infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV). This system will be validated and expanded to other B cell tropic viruses in order to replace the use of infected chickens in research, in an NC3Rs funded grant. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - in vitro |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Using this system, we have determined that chicken primary B cells respond to IBDV infection by inducing Type I IFN responses. However, the induction is more pronounced in cells infected with an attenuated strain compared to a very virulent strain. This is consistent with the very virulent strain down-regulating antiviral responses to a greater extent than other strains which may, in part, explain its enhanced virulence. We also observed a reduction in the expression of key genes involved in B cell proliferation and activation following IBDV infection which was only possible by using the primary B cell culture system. |
| URL | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=broadbent+dulwich |
| Title | Assistance in establishment of NIBSC WHO International Standard for SARS-CoV-2 |
| Description | We assisted NIBSC and the WHO in developing an international serum standard (for ELISAs, VNTs etc.) for SARS-CoV-2. This is an essential tool for standardising assay results across different laboratories and the reagents have now been used by 100s of labs. The emergence of variants with altered antigencity meant that a new reagent was needed and in early 2022 we also helped with this next generation of reagents. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Development of an international standard for SARS2 is pivotal for standardising results across various labs working on the pandemic response to Covid. As such this is an essential tool for the international research community. |
| Title | CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing of avian herpesvirus vectors to develop novel recombinant vaccines |
| Description | Development of recombinant herpesvirus vaccines are usually achieved by classical homologous recombination methods. The advent of new genome editing tools has enabled its application on avian herpesvirus vaccine strains to develop new recombinant vaccines potentially capable of expressing protective antigens from multiple pathogens |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The major impact will be in the generation of novel vaccines that can simultaneously protect against multiple avian diseases |
| URL | http://www.poultryworld.net/Health/Articles/2016/12/Is-GM-technology-the-future-of-poultry-vaccines-... |
| Title | Cattle MHC genotyping |
| Description | Using the sequence data generated through the targeted pull down of MHC, we developed a full gene and more targeted PCR approach to genotype cattle for the MHC class I region. This has been applied to many hundreds of samples to enable us to select individuals for breeding as well as survey genetic diversity in beef and diary herds. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | After publication which we anticipate in 2019, we will appy this method to targeted herds and are already attracting industry interest. |
| Title | Comprehensive analysis of genetic variants across immune loci in indigenous breeds. |
| Description | The interferon-induced transmembrane (IFITM) protein family comprises a class of restriction factors widely characterised in humans for their potent antiviral activity. Their biological activity is well documented in several animal species, but their genetic variation and biological mechanism is less well understood, particularly in avian species. Here we report the complete sequence of the domestic chicken Gallus gallus IFITM locus from a wide variety of chicken breeds to examine the detailed pattern of genetic variation of the locus on chromosome 5, including the flanking genes ATHL1 and B4GALNT4. We have generated chIFITM sequences from commercial breeds (supermarket-derived chicken breasts), ancient bone samples, indigenous chickens from Nigeria (Nsukka) and Ethiopia, European breeds and inbred chicken lines from The Pirbright Institute, totalling of 211 chickens. Through mapping of genetic variants to the latest chIFITM consensus sequence our data reveal that the chIFITM locus does not show structural variation in the locus across the populations analysed, despite spanning diverse breeds from different geographic locations. However, single nucleotide variants (SNVs) in functionally important regions of the proteins within certain groups of chickens were detected, in particular the European breeds and indigenous birds from Ethiopia and Nigeria. In addition, we also found that two out of four SNVs located in the chIFITM1 (Ser36 and Arg77) and chIFITM3 (Val103) proteins were simultaneously under positive selection. Together these data suggest that IFITM genetic variation may contribute to the capacities of different chicken populations to resist viral infection. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - non-mammalian in vivo |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This paper is currently in press in. BMC Genomics. |
| Title | Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy (CLEM) on IBDV-infected cells |
| Description | Jenny Simpson and Pippa Hawes have developed the technique of Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy (CLEM). This technique has been used to visualise Virus Factories of IBDV. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The Virus Factories (VFs) of IBDV were thought to be paracrystalline arrays of virions in the cytoplasm. However, combining our GFP11-tagged IBDV with CLEM technology revealed that the VFs are actually proteinaceous accumulations in the cytoplasm. This has opened up a new avenue of research in terms of the ultrastructure, formation and function of the VFs. |
| Title | Detection of HA antigens of avian influenza viruses |
| Description | Assay for detection of recombinant HVT expressing HA antigens of avian influenza viruses |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This new method will help to detect recombinant HVT vaccine expressing HA antigen in infected cell. |
| Title | Developed an in vivo infection model to generate highly pathogenic bovine RSV for challenge studies. Developed an accompanying in vitro titration method to calculate yield of virus produced. |
| Description | Developed an in vivo infection model to generate highly pathogenic bovine RSV for challenge studies. Developed an accompanying in vitro titration method to calculate yield of virus produced. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Will help use and improve the calf challenge model of bovine RSV for vaccine testing. |
| Title | Developed assays for evaluation of antigen specific memory chicken T cells |
| Description | An in vitro model for generation of effector cells from memory T cells for chicken T cells were developed |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This method will enable scientists working on poultry vaccines and immune response to pathogens to assess memory T cell responses in chickens. |
| Title | Development of CLEM techniques for RSV |
| Description | We have developed the technical expertise to perform correlative light electron microscopy on respiratory syncytial virus infected cells. This allows us to directly compare immunofluorescent images with transmission EM of the same cell. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | We have recently submitted a paper and grant building on this expertise, as well as forging new collaborations with Diamond light source. |
| Title | Development of SARS-CoV-2 pseudotypes |
| Description | Method to allow assessment of SARS-CoV-2 entry, which can be used in various experiments including VNTs to assess humoral immune response (in convalescent or vaccinated individuals) |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Application in the establishment of the SARS-CoV-2 international reference standard by NIBSC |
| Title | Development of assay for assessing antigen-specific T cell responses in chickens |
| Description | An in vitro assay were developed to generate effector memory T cells from memory T cells (cultured ELISPOT assay for chicken T cells) |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Enables scientists to assess memory T cell responses induced by poultry vaccines |
| Title | Development of assays for quantifying fusion inhibitory antibodies in sera (mFIT assay) |
| Description | We have developed a micro-fusion inhibition test (mFIT) assay to identify and quantify antibody responses (to vaccines etc.) which are capable of inhibiting viral induced cell-cell fusion. This test has been developed for various negative strand viruses (Nipah and RSV) as well as SARS-CoV-2 |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This assay was used to aide development of the NIBSC WHO international standard for SARS-CoV-2 |
| Title | Development of chicken NKT cell tetramer |
| Description | Tetramer for detection and quantification of chicken NKT cells are developed and tested. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This will lead to identification of a novel chicken lymphocytes which has major role in the control of infectious diseases and tumour in chickens. |
| Title | Development of high-throughput assay for examining viral mediated cell-cell fusion |
| Description | We have developed and optimised high-throughput assays (96 well plate format) to examine viral induced cell-cell fusion, using an adapted Bi-FC approach. We are using this to identify inhibitors of paramyxovirus, e.g. measles and RSV, fusion and attachment proteins as well as SARS-CoV-2. This has been integrated with next-generation platforms such as the Incucyte real-time imaging system available at The Pirbright Institute, and the system has been rationalised so that it is entirely inducible. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | We are using this assay to examine the innate immune restriction of paramyxovirus replication. |
| Title | Development of tetramers to study immune responses in pigs |
| Description | The pig is a natural and important host of influenza viruses and is physiologically more comparable to humans than other animal models in terms of size, respiratory tract biology and volume. It is also an important vector in the birds to human infection cycle. A major drawback of the current pig model is the inability to analyze antigen-specific CD8+ T-cell responses, which are critical to respiratory immunity. We addressed this knowledge gap using an established in-bred pig model with a high degree of genetic identity between individuals, including the MHC (Swine Leukocyte Antigen (SLA)) locus. We developed a toolset that included long-term in vitro pig T-cell culture and cloning and identification of novel immunodominant influenza-derived T-cell epitopes. We also generated structures of the two SLA class I molecules found in these animals presenting the immunodominant epitopes. These structures allowed definition of the primary anchor points for epitopes in the SLA binding groove and established SLA binding motifs that were used to successfully predict other influenza-derived peptide sequences capable of stimulating T-cells. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Peptide-SLA tetramers were constructed and used to track influenza-specific T-cells ex vivo in blood, the lungs and draining lymph nodes. Aerosol immunization with attenuated single cycle influenza viruses (S-FLU) induced large numbers of CD8+ T-cells specific for conserved NP peptides in the respiratory tract. Collectively, these data substantially increase the utility of pigs as an effective model for studying protective local cellular immunity against respiratory pathogens. |
| Title | Established a method to immortalize bovine antigen presenting cells |
| Description | Established protocols to prepare lentiviruses expressing the proto-oncogenes Bmi1 and hTERT. Established protocols to transduce and generate immortal bovine antigen presenting cells derived from peripheral blood monocytes. |
| Type Of Material | Cell line |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This is the first successful attempt at generating bovine immortal monocytic cell lines. This method can also be applied to immortalize B cells. This will result in reducing the number of animals used in experimentation and considerably reduce costs. |
| Title | Established human T cell lines expressing bovine WC1 genes for the analysis of WC1 signal transduction pathways. |
| Description | Established human Jurkat T cells expressing bovine the bovine gammadelta WC1 co-receptor |
| Type Of Material | Cell line |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This cell line will help determine the function of the WC1 co-receptor in gammadelta T cell activation and function. |
| Title | Generated a MHC-defined bovine monophagocytic cell line. |
| Description | Using the method described above, successfully generated one MHC-defined bovine monophagocytic cell line (A18) which expresses and single classical MHC gene (HD6). |
| Type Of Material | Cell line |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Will help reduce the number of animals used in experimentation. Will help resolve antigen presentation pathways in bovine cells and using bovine pathogens. Will help understand T cell activation pathways using MHC matched and mis-matched cells. Will help investigate bovine NK cell activation. |
| Title | Generated monophagocytic reporter cell lines to study the NF-kB signaling pathway |
| Description | Generated human monophagocytic cells expressing alkaline phosphatase reporter gene under a NF-kB promoter sequence. |
| Type Of Material | Cell line |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This cell line is helping determine the role of RSV genes in immune modulation of monophagocytic cells in response to RSV infection. |
| Title | Generation of cell-free virus using feather follicle stem cells |
| Description | An in vitro model for generation and purification of cell-free virus using feather follicule stem cells |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Cell lines could be used to generate cell free vaccines against Marek's disease virus |
| Title | IBDV Reverse Genetics System |
| Description | We have developed a reverse genetics system for IBDV. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | We have used the reverse genetics system to generate recombinant IBDVs and chimeric recombinant IBDVs that contain genes from classical and very virulent strains of IBDV in the background of a cell culture adapted attenuated strain. This will enable us to study the effect of individual virus genes on pathogenicity. |
| Title | Method to evenly load flowcells with multiple samples |
| Description | Pirbright has an Illumina NextSeq sequencing machine installed in containment. Given the large amount of sequencing reads produced by each run, multiple samples are usually multiplexed on the same flowcell. However, determining the correct concentrations needed to obtain the same amount of reads for each sample is a hard problem, and usually requires a number of expensive and material-consuming kits to be run prior to sequencing. We have developed a method that allows samples to be evenly multiplexed based only on Bioanalyzer data (we routinely run Bioanalyser on the samples anyway as a form of quality control). The method works well, and reliably across a wide range of sample concentrations and sequenced organisms. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The method greatly increased the quality of our output, and drastically simplified our workflow by eliminating the external quantification steps that were previously required. |
| Title | Optimisation of chicken kidney cell culture preparation |
| Description | We have optimised the method of extracting kidneys and preparing chicken kidney (CK) cell cultures from chickens. CK cells are used for in vitro assays to study avian viruses, in particular infectious bronchitis virus. |
| Type Of Material | Cell line |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This has increased the yield of viable cells and the quality of the cell cultures. We can now obtain the number of cells we require using fewer chicken kidneys, therefore requiring fewer chickens to be culled. This is an important development for the 3Rs. We hope to publish this method for others' information. |
| Title | Optimisation of preparation of TOCs from adult chickens |
| Description | Tracheal organ cultures (TOCs) are prepared from chicken embryos and used to assess growth of avian viruses that are not able to be propagated in cell culture. We have optimised the method of TOCs preparation from 3-week old chickens and are using these to assess viral genetic stability and phenotype in organ cultures that are a similar environment to the site of replication in whole chickens. |
| Type Of Material | Cell line |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | We hope that this technique will reduce the number of chickens required for in vivo experiments, in line with the 3Rs, and plan to publish the method in due course. |
| Title | Panel of ACE2 proteins for screening SARS-CoV-2 host range |
| Description | A biological library of ACE2 expression constructs representing receptors from 22 different human and animal species. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Establishment of surveillance tools to examine the potential reverse zoonotic spillover of SARS-CoV-2 into anima species |
| Title | Recombinant antibody generation pipeline - WM |
| Description | Validated a sequencing protocol at Pirbright for mouse hybridomas, cattle heterohybridomas, and porcine B cells. Vector constructed for humans, mouse, cattle, pigs and chicken to allow ligation of commercially generated antibody gene blocks or PCR products generated by degenerate or 5' RACE PCR. These methods allow the following: • Sequencing mAbs • Making Fab fragments from mAbs • Class switching mAbs • Species switching mAbs |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The methods developed have enabled a standardised pipeline that allows cloning of PCR products or synthetic gene constructs for recombinant antibody generation from various species. This uniform approach avoids development of bespoke protocols for each species thus saving time and resources. |
| URL | http://www.immunologicaltoolbox.co.uk |
| Title | Stable chicken cell lines overexpressing chicken IFITM1,2 and 3 |
| Description | In collaboration with Mark Fife, we have produced chicken stable cell lines overexpressing chicken IFITM1,2, 3 and a mutant chicken IFITM3 lacking palmitoylation sites. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | These cell lines will be used to evaluate the effect of the IFITM proteins on the replication of different viruses, including IBDV. |
| Title | UniMMap- a pipeline for mapping RNAseq data over repetitive immune complexes. |
| Description | To exploit the abundance of available short read sequencing data we have developed a pipeline that uses mappability to accurately measure transcription over repetitive gene complexes. This methods uses known haplotypes to examine regions of uniqueness, and then the RNAseq data from the individual to train the method to be species or individual specific. This is particularly important over gene complexes that contain genes involved in the immune system, that are often highly similar in sequence but can have profoundly different functions. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | the immediate impact will be adding fine resolution data to livestock gene expression atlas projects lead by the FAANG consortium. Further impact will be arising as this method is published and we apply it to numerous existing datasets the are publically avaialable as well as generated at Pirbright and by our collaborators. |
| Title | chimeric IBDVs |
| Description | Andrew Broadbent has engineered chimeric IBDVs expressing individual genes from a very virulent strain in the backbone of an attenuated strain. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | These chimeric strains can be used to define viral determinants of virulence. |
| Title | chimeric recombinant IBDV with the hypervariable region from field strains |
| Description | Using our reverse genetics system and B cell culture system, we have engineered a chimeric IBDV with the backbone of a lab-adapted strain, but containing the hyper variable region of the capsid from a very virulent field strain (UK661). |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This is a proof of concept that it is possible to engineer an IBDV containing the hypervariable region from another strain. We now plan to engineer chimeric viruses with the hypervariable region from strains belonging to different genogroups from different geographical regions and use them to screen the serum from vaccinated birds to deduce the breadth of antibody responses. |
| Title | in vitro model of IBDV antigenic drift in chicken B cells |
| Description | IBDV vaccines do not induce sterilising immunity, meaning vaccinated birds can become infected with field strains. As for other viruses, it is thought that vaccine-induced immune selection pressure drives the evolution of antigenic drift variants that accumulate amino acid changes in the hypervariable region of the capsid, which may lead to vaccine failures. However, antigenic drift has not been studied in any detail for IBDV, and there is therefore a paucity of information regarding how plastic the capsid is, how quickly mutations arise and become fixed in the virus population, or whether some are more dominant than others. One way of studying this is to vaccinate chickens with sub-protective doses and then challenge them with field strains of IBDV and then sequence the resulting viruses that emerge. To replace the use of birds in these experiments, we have developed an in vitro model of antigenic drift by serially passaging a field strain, F5270, in the immortalised chicken B cell line, DT40, in the presence of sub-neutralising concentrations of vaccine-induced antibodies to better characterise changes in the capsid. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | In our model, amino acid mutations arose in the hypervariable region of the IBDV capsid at the same sites previously observed in field studies, validating our model. Furthermore, we demonstrated that mutations arose early, by only 5 passages in chicken B cells, which subsequently became fixed by 10 passages. We are now doing next generation sequencing to better characterise the plasticity of the capsid. |
| Title | method for identification of lung Tissue resident memory cells in pigs |
| Description | Recent overwhelming evidence indicates the importance of local tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM) in protective immunity. Most work on TRM has been performed in mice and the TRM defined as inaccessible to intravenously administered anti-T cell antibody. However there are very few data on TRM in large animals. For the first time we have defined TRM in the pig influenza model. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The identification of TRM and their robust protective capacity in site-specific infection has provided a new paradigm by which to assess T cell-mediated responses and an important new target for vaccine design. Since swine are an economically important species, are used as a large animal model for human infection and play a key role in the emergence of novel and potentially zoonotic influenza viruses, the identification of TRM in pigs will allow us to study their role in immunity to swine influenza.and how best to induce them by immunisation. |
| Title | replication competent recombinant split-GFP infectious bursal disease virus |
| Description | We have generated a replication competent recombinant split-GFP infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) where a small GFP11 molecule is tagged to the virus polymerase (VP1) to make IBDV-VP1-GFP11. Infected cells that express the GFP1-10 molecule fluoresce green when the GFP11 tag complements the GFP1-10. The IBDV-VP1-GFP11 colocalises with VP3 and dsRNA and therefore is likely to be present at the sites of virus replication. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This tool can be used to study IBDV replication complex development in infected cells. |
| Title | tetracysteine-tagged IBDV |
| Description | Andrew Broadbent has engineered a tetracysteine (TC)-tagged IBDV that can be used in live cell imaging and co-infection studies with the split-GFP IBDV. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This tool, combined with the split-GFP IBDV, will enable us to study co-infection, super-infection exclusion, and the intracellular requirements for viral reassortment. |
| Title | Analysis of paramyxovirus replication using Incucyte real-time imager |
| Description | We have optimised a data analysis pipeline for the Incucyte real-time imager to allow us to track viral replication in a high-throughput fashion (up to 6 x 96-well plates). This is based on simultaneous analysis of phase, as well as green and red fluorescence. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Only preliminary data to date. |
| Title | E-MTAB-5947- Transcription profiling by array of differential gene expression in chicken primary B cells infected ex vivo with attenuated and very virulent strains of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) |
| Description | Microarray data submitted to ArrayExpress from chicken primary B cells infected with a very virulent and attenuated strain of IBDV. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This is the first ever microarray data of chicken primary B cells infected with IBDV and will be of use to other researchers in the area of B cell biology or IBDV virology |
| URL | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/experiments/E-MTAB-5947/ |
| Title | FDA drug screening of RSV and SARS-CoV-2 cell-cell fusion |
| Description | Using inducible cell-cell fusion assays for SARS-CoV-2 and RSV we have screened the FDA approved use drug library for inhibitors of these viral-induced processes |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | No impact as yet, data still being validated in live virus assays |
| Title | Full length cattle MHC genes |
| Description | Using our method for full length MHC gene amplification, the largest reference set ever produced from common haplotypes has been sequenced and deposited in the publicly available data IPD-MHC with associated research tools. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | None yet, but it will allow far greater resolution when analysing MHC polymorphism and evolution in cattle populations. |
| URL | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ipd/mhc/group/BoLA/ |
| Title | Technique for analysing interferon stimulated gene inhibition of RSV cell-cell fusion |
| Description | We have developed the techniques and performed the experiments to examine the effect of over-expressing individual interferon stimulated genes on RSV (bovine and human) replication and cell-cell fusion. This was achieved through integration of library technologies (for the ISGs) and high throughout imaging platforms. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | No impact yet as data has still to be published. Manuscript in preparation. |
| Description | Aerosol delivery of vaccines and therapeutics |
| Organisation | Aerogen |
| Country | Ireland |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Developed the pig influenza model which is a natural host pathogen system |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided expertise and equipment for aerosol delivery |
| Impact | Successfully delivered vaccines by aerosol |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Andrew Davidson - Proteome of viral replication organelles |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Department | Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Projects are being initiated to study the cellular proteins associated with coronavirus replication organelle membranes and a funding application has been submitted to BBSRC. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Andrew has provided assistance with experimental planning and drafting of a grant application. He has also provided protocols to allow preliminary data to be generated. Once protocols have been established, Andrew will facilitate mass spectrometry data generation and will analyse the resulting data. |
| Impact | No outcomes to date, projects being initiated and funding applications in progress. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Annika Posautz; University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. Morbillivirus host-diversity analysis. |
| Organisation | University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna |
| Country | Austria |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Sharing of research data regarding morbillivirus host-range and technical support to the project. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of tissue samples from potential morbillivirus hosts, e.g. carnivores. |
| Impact | No outcomes as yet. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Aviagen |
| Organisation | Aviagen |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Influenza virus expertise in poultry. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Sharing of commercial poultry breed resources |
| Impact | We have a sponsored PhD studentship to commence Oct 2021 agreed. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | BBSRC - Oxford University iCASE Studentship (October 2019- September 2023). Production and assessment of antiviral prophylactic properties of natural biomolecules against avian influenza and Newcastle disease viruses affecting poultry production |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This collaboration between The Pirbright Institute (UK), Oxford University (UK) and industrial partners in Italy. This project will conceived and developed bu MI. The PhD student (Holly Everest) in my group is investigating the antiviral prophylactic properties of natural biomolecules against avian influenza and Newcastle disease viruses affecting poultry production. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partners in Italy will produce and purify natural antiviral molecules effective against avian influenza and other poultry viruses. |
| Impact | This project started in January 2020. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | BBSRC-UC Davis workshop, 16-18 October |
| Organisation | University of California, Davis |
| Department | UC Davis College of Biological Sciences |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Presented on "Reproducibility and relevance in vector infection studies". Followed up with discussion of potential publication and funding opportunities. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Various presentations on vectors and vector-borne diseases including, facilities, challenges, opportunities. |
| Impact | Discussion of potential joint publications and grant applications; no tangible impacts yet. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | BBSRC-UC Davis workshop, 16-18 October |
| Organisation | University of Liverpool |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Presented on "Reproducibility and relevance in vector infection studies". Followed up with discussion of potential publication and funding opportunities. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Various presentations on vectors and vector-borne diseases including, facilities, challenges, opportunities. |
| Impact | Discussion of potential joint publications and grant applications; no tangible impacts yet. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Belsham |
| Organisation | Technical University of Denmark |
| Country | Denmark |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Joint PhD studentship and ongoing collaboration on capsid assembly |
| Collaborator Contribution | Joint PhD studentship and ongoing collaboration on capsid assembly |
| Impact | Joint PhD studentship Further funding |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Belsham |
| Organisation | University of Copenhagen |
| Country | Denmark |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Joint PhD studentship and ongoing collaboration on capsid assembly |
| Collaborator Contribution | Joint PhD studentship and ongoing collaboration on capsid assembly |
| Impact | Joint PhD studentship Further funding |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Bioimaging collaboration with Dr. Daniel Clare, Dr. James Gilchrist, Dr. Pippa Hawes - cryo-electron tomography Diamond Light Source |
| Organisation | Diamond Light Source |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Development of preliminary data on inclusion body structure to support higher resolution approaches. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Discussion of project and experimental design, technological approaches and limitations. |
| Impact | No outputs to date. Multi-disciplinary team of virologists and structural biologists |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Biophysics collaboration with Prof. Stephen McKnight, UTSW-Dallas |
| Organisation | University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of preliminary data on the biophysics and biochemistry of inclusion bodies |
| Collaborator Contribution | Supportive comments on grant applications and experimental design advice. |
| Impact | No outputs to date |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Bridget Penman |
| Organisation | University of Warwick |
| Department | School of Life Sciences |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We are providing genetic data and diversity measures of MHC and associated receptors to inform the modelling efforts to elucidate which selection pressures are the main drivers for the types of diversity we see in extant species. |
| Collaborator Contribution | They are experts in mathmatical modelling and will provide data to help explain genetic diversity in cattle. |
| Impact | Not yet |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | CVR |
| Organisation | University of Glasgow |
| Department | MRC - University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Pirbright has several groups investigating various aspects of vector-borne diseases. My group provides mosquito expertise, including gene editing, genetics and transgenesis. CVR have expert arbovirologists with complementary interests. We have developed and exchanged research materials and reagents, shared expertise, and have shared grant funding. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Pirbright has several groups investigating various aspects of vector-borne diseases. My group provides mosquito expertise, including gene editing, genetics and transgenesis. CVR have expert arbovirologists with complementary interests. We have developed and exchanged research materials and reagents, shared expertise, and have shared grant funding. |
| Impact | Joint grant. Several ongoing research strands within this. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Challenge of transgenic chickens with influenza viruses |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Department | Section of Virology |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have challenged transgenic chickens with recombinant avian influenza viruses to determine outcome; infectivity, transmission, pathogenicity, dissemination within host. We also processed the samples generated from these animal experiments at The Pirbright Institute. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Imperial College (Wendy Barclay and Mike Skinner) generated recombinant avian influenza viruses for challenge. |
| Impact | This collaboration has resulted in the successful award of a joint grant with imperial college aiming to carry out challenge experiments on novel transgenic chickens to facilitate control of avian influenza virus in the poultry population. BB/S007911/1 - Investigating the role of ANP32A in the replication of avian Influenza virus |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Charles Sande - KEMRI - Kenya: RSV collaboration |
| Organisation | Kenyan Institute for Medical Research (KEMRI) |
| Country | Kenya |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Development of research proposal for PhD studentship on the innate immune response during RSV infection. This student will be hosted by my lab for 18 months from 2020 onwards. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Project design. Application for PhD funding and provision of technical support. |
| Impact | The studentship was awarded to Dr. Sande in Kenya and the student has been recruited. They will commence their studies in Spring 2019 and come to the UK in early 2020. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Chicken Microbiome - Robert La Ragione - University of Surrey |
| Organisation | University of Surrey |
| Department | School of Veterinary Medicine |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Providing sequencing data of gut microbiome from chickens infected with avian influenza viruses. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Sharing expertise in the analysis of microbiome data |
| Impact | Joint manuscripts and funding opportunities are being explored |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Collaboration on SARS-CoV-2 host range with Prof. Wendy Barclay |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Assaying novel SARS-CoV-2 variant sequences for increased tropism to non-human receptors |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of variant Spike constructs |
| Impact | Mutations that adapt SARS-CoV-2 to mink or ferret do not increase fitness in the human airway. Zhou J, Peacock TP, Brown JC, Goldhill DH, Elrefaey AME, Penrice-Randal R, Cowton VM, De Lorenzo G, Furnon W, Harvey WT, Kugathasan R, Frise R, Baillon L, Lassaunière R, Thakur N, Gallo G, Goldswain H, Donovan-Banfield I, Dong X, Randle NP, Sweeney F, Glynn MC, Quantrill JL, McKay PF, Patel AH, Palmarini M, Hiscox JA, Bailey D, Barclay WS. Cell Rep. 2022 Feb 8;38(6):110344. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35093235/ |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Collaboration on replication of mumps virus in cells |
| Organisation | University of Copenhagen |
| Country | Denmark |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Intellectual input so far, training research assistant to prepare samples, imaging samples in transmission electron microscopes |
| Collaborator Contribution | Preliminary confocal microscopy to optimize sample conditions. Preparation of samples for EM. |
| Impact | No outcomes yet |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Collaboration on the development of intranasal live-attenuated vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 |
| Organisation | Lancaster University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Contributed reagents to tests the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of an intranasal live-attenuated vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in preclinical animal models including mice and hamster. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partners undertook most of the work to complete the study detailed in the publication entitled "Immunogenicity and protective efficacy of an intranasal live-attenuated vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in preclinical animal models". https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.08.425974v1 Abstract of publication. The global deployment of an effective and safe vaccine is currently a public health priority to curtail the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Here, we evaluated a Newcastle disease virus (NDV)-based intranasal vectored-vaccine in mice and hamsters for its immunogenicity, safety and protective efficacy in challenge studies with SARS-CoV-2. The recombinant (r)NDV-S vaccine expressing spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2 administrated via intranasal route in mice induced high levels of SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralizing immunoglobulin A (IgA) and IgG2a antibodies and T cell-mediated immunity. Hamsters vaccinated with two doses of vaccine showed complete protection from clinical disease including lung infection, inflammation, and pathological lesions after SARS-CoV-2 challenge. Importantly, a single or double dose of intranasal rNDV-S vaccine completely blocked SARS-CoV-2 shedding in nasal turbinate and lungs within 4 days of vaccine administration in hamsters. Taken together, intranasal administration of rNDV-S has the potential to control infection at the site of inoculation, which should prevent both the clinical disease and transmission to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| Impact | The partnership resulted in a joint publication. "Immunogenicity and protective efficacy of an intranasal live-attenuated vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in preclinical animal models". https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.08.425974v1 Abstract of publication. The global deployment of an effective and safe vaccine is currently a public health priority to curtail the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Here, we evaluated a Newcastle disease virus (NDV)-based intranasal vectored-vaccine in mice and hamsters for its immunogenicity, safety and protective efficacy in challenge studies with SARS-CoV-2. The recombinant (r)NDV-S vaccine expressing spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2 administrated via intranasal route in mice induced high levels of SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralizing immunoglobulin A (IgA) and IgG2a antibodies and T cell-mediated immunity. Hamsters vaccinated with two doses of vaccine showed complete protection from clinical disease including lung infection, inflammation, and pathological lesions after the SARS-CoV-2 challenge. Importantly, a single or double dose of intranasal rNDV-S vaccine completely blocked SARS-CoV-2 shedding in nasal turbinate and lungs within 4 days of vaccine administration in hamsters. Taken together, intranasal administration of rNDV-S has the potential to control infection at the site of inoculation, which should prevent both the clinical disease and transmission to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Collaboration with Dan Horton, Surrey Uni on antigenic cartography |
| Organisation | University of Surrey |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provision of data for analysis, specifically antigenic titres on SARS-CoV-2 neutralisation Provision of data for analysis, specifically data on virus receptor usage |
| Collaborator Contribution | Assessment of antigenic relatedness in neutralisation datasets by antigenic cartography Assessment of receptor usage data by cartography |
| Impact | Funding awarded by UKRI, BBSRC grant BB/W006162/1 Viral entry at the human-animal interface; dissecting the pan-tropic nature of zoonotic viruses. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Collaboration with Keith Chappell on virus neutralisation |
| Organisation | University of Queensland |
| Country | Australia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Assessment of neutralisation to a range of viral immunogens by VNT using pseudotyping technology Assessment of neutralisation to a range of viral immunogens by microfusion inhibition test |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of sera from vaccination studies Provision of constructs for pseudotyping and cell-cell fusion |
| Impact | None yet, publications in preparation |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Collaboration with Kevin Brown at UKHSA |
| Organisation | Public Health England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Performing neutralisation assays as part of UK Covid response, in particular as part of UKHSA/PHE Consensus Study |
| Collaborator Contribution | Providing sera from Consensus study Advice on project design |
| Impact | Paper under review at Nature Microbiology |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Collaboration with Prof. Jane McKeating on RSV and SARS-CoV-2 virology |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 cell-cell fusion under various conditions, and with chemical inhibitors Provision of RSV reagents |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of inhibitors and other reagents Experimentation with RSV |
| Impact | None yet, paper under review |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Collaboration with Ravi Gupta, University of Cambridge |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration on recurrent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 spike deletion H69/V70 and its role in the biology of this virus. We performed research towards a paper focusing on related sarbecoviruses (RaTG13) |
| Collaborator Contribution | Ravi's group led this research to understand the recurrent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 spike deletion H69/V70, leading to publication in Cell Reports. |
| Impact | Recurrent emergence of SARS-CoV- spike deletion H69/V70 and role in B.1.1.7. Meng B, Kemp SA, Papa G, Datir R, Ferriera I, Marelli S, Harvey WT, Lytras S, Mohamed A, Gallo G, Thakur N, Collier DA, Mlcochova P, The COVID-9 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium, Duncan LM, Carabelli AM, Kenyon JC, Lever AM, De Marco A, Saliba C, Culap K, Cameroni E, Matheson NJ, Piccoli L, Corti D, James LC, Robertson DL, Bailey D, Gupta RK. Cell Rep. 2021 Jun 29;35(13):109292. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109292. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34166617/ |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Collaboration with University of Cambridge |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have performed in vitro experiments with infectious bronchitis virus, contributed to data analysis, preparation of manuscripts and discussed further funding opportunities. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners have analysed viral transcription and translation, and host gene expression after infection of host cells with infectious bronchitis virus, prepared manuscripts and discussed further funding opportunities. |
| Impact | Dinan, A., Keep, S., Bickerton, E., Britton, P., Firth, A. and Brierley, I. (2019) Comparative analysis of gene expression in virulent and attenuated strains of infectious bronchitis virus at sub-codon resolution. J. Virol. 93(18) e00714-19. |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | Collaboration with University of Copenhagen CFIM on cell biology of virus-host interactions |
| Organisation | University of Copenhagen |
| Country | Denmark |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Intellectual input into virus projects which come in to the microscopy core facility at the University. Limited practical work and training given to researchers there. Includes lecturing/organisation of MSc and PhD courses at Copenhagen. PH awarded Visiting Professorship. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Research projects are presented to the core facility, I advise on the best route for achieving the data required and those researchers complete preliminary data following my advice. Collaborators are then able to produce the best possible samples for further advanced microscopy as necessary. |
| Impact | No tangible outcomes yet as we are in early stages. This is multi-disciplinary as projects can come from several University departments (medical, pathology, cell biology, veterinary, food), and other Universities in Denmark (DTU). University awarded Visiting Professorship |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Collaboration with University of Oxford |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have supplied coronavirus samples and coronavirus expertise to the collaboration. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners have led the research and we have a manuscript currently under review. |
| Impact | Evaluation of imaging technologies to detect coronavirus-infected samples. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Collaboration with Wei Huang, Uni of Oxford on SARS2 neutralisation |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Hosting of students to undertake SARS2 neutralisation experiments Training and data interpretation |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of synthetic antibody-bearing particles for neutralisation experiments |
| Impact | Possible grant application in the future |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Collaborative network with Ed Wright, Nigel Temperton and Giada Mattiuzzo on SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyping |
| Organisation | National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Development and establishment of SARS-CoV-2 research tools, including pseudotypes and cell-cell fusion assays |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of reagents, protocols and technical guidance |
| Impact | We aided in NIBSC's development of WHO international standard for SARS-CoV-2 and have a publication in press on sarbecovirus neutralisation: bioarchived here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.17.456606v1 |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Collaborative network with Ed Wright, Nigel Temperton and Giada Mattiuzzo on SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyping |
| Organisation | University of Kent |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development and establishment of SARS-CoV-2 research tools, including pseudotypes and cell-cell fusion assays |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of reagents, protocols and technical guidance |
| Impact | We aided in NIBSC's development of WHO international standard for SARS-CoV-2 and have a publication in press on sarbecovirus neutralisation: bioarchived here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.17.456606v1 |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Collaborative network with Ed Wright, Nigel Temperton and Giada Mattiuzzo on SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyping |
| Organisation | University of Sussex |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development and establishment of SARS-CoV-2 research tools, including pseudotypes and cell-cell fusion assays |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of reagents, protocols and technical guidance |
| Impact | We aided in NIBSC's development of WHO international standard for SARS-CoV-2 and have a publication in press on sarbecovirus neutralisation: bioarchived here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.17.456606v1 |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Commonwealth Scholarship. Molecular determinants impacting avian influenza H9N2 virus evolution, replication fitness and virulence |
| Organisation | Royal Veterinary College (RVC) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I develop a research project proposal in which we are investigating how evolutionary changes in the H9N2 avian influenza virus modulate virus fitness and virulence in chickens. This PhD studentship project was funded by Commonwealth scholarship commission for 3 years. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The collaborating Partner Dr Nicola Lewis at Royal Veterinary College is a co-supervisor of the PhD student Thusitha Karunarathna. she provide necessary guidance to achieve prescribed objectives of this project. |
| Impact | The project is at its initial stage. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Components of the Medea gene drive system in a mosquito Aedes aegypti |
| Organisation | National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) Taiwan |
| Department | Institute of Molecular and Genomic Medicine |
| Country | Taiwan, Province of China |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Developed joined research project and lead successful application for funding |
| Collaborator Contribution | Various lines of research, including construction of plasmids and development and characterisation of transgenic mosquito strains; and group discussions about results, conclusions and research progress. |
| Impact | No impact yet. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Components of the Medea gene drive system in a mosquito Aedes aegypti |
| Organisation | National Institute of Genetics |
| Department | NIG-FLY, Mishima (Drosophila RNAi resources) |
| Country | Japan |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developed joined research project and lead successful application for funding |
| Collaborator Contribution | Various lines of research, including construction of plasmids and development and characterisation of transgenic mosquito strains; and group discussions about results, conclusions and research progress. |
| Impact | No impact yet. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Dan Clare - cryo-electron microscopy |
| Organisation | Diamond Light Source |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The project aims to characterise proteins complexes associated with coronavirus replication organelles. My team provides significant expertise in replication organelles induced by coronaviruses. Laboratory work is performed by my team. The project is funded by a joint PhD studentship working, predominantly in my laboratory. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dan provides expertise in cryo-electron microscopy and is advising on experimental design and data analysis as well as providing training. |
| Impact | The student has generated recombinant viruses expressing fluorescently-tagged proteins to allow direct visualisation of replication organelle membranes. These have been validated and cryo-electron microscopy experiments are planned shortly. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | David Hughes - University of St. Andrews. RSV preparation. |
| Organisation | St. Andrews University |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Sharing of preliminary research data on innate immune restriction of RSV. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of cell-lines (Hep2-Npro) to support generation of high titre stocks of RSV. Also associated protocols. |
| Impact | No outcomes as yet, beyond preliminary data. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | David Matthews - Proteomics informed by transcriptomics |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Department | Proteomics Facility |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Projects are being initiated to study the cellular proteins associated with coronavirus replication organelle membranes and a funding application has been submitted to BBSRC. |
| Collaborator Contribution | David has assisted in project design and drafting of a funding application to BBSRC. We are in the process of generating transcriptomics data, which David will process to provide an expressed protein database for peptide identification following mass spectrometry. |
| Impact | No outcomes to date, a funding application has been submitted to BBSRC. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Dengue microvascular pathogenesis |
| Organisation | University of Surrey |
| Department | Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I brought my expertise in dengue and virology, and had significant intellectual input into shaping the research question and methodological approach. I also directly contributed to the training of one shared MSc student, one shared PhD student and three undergraduate students who have contributed to this project so far. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partner (Dr. Paola Campagnolo, University of Surrey) brought their expertise in cardiovascular biology and had significant intellectual input into shaping the research question and methodological approach. They also directly contributed to the training of one shared MSc student, one shared PhD student and three undergraduate students who have contributed to this project so far. |
| Impact | The collaboration has resulted in the following publications: DOI: 10.1128/mSphere.00258-20 DOI: 10.1128/mSphere.00258-20 This is an interdisciplinary collaboration. The disciplines are microbiology/virology (me) and cardiovascular biology (Dr. Paola Campagnolo, University of Surrey). |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Derek Bickhart-USDA |
| Organisation | U.S. Department of Agriculture USDA |
| Department | Beltsville Agricultural Research Center |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our group has provided the genomic framework of the cattle NK cell regions and the biological input. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The ARS group has used our data as a framework to map and predict cattle SNPs for variable immune traits using their whole genome data |
| Impact | Research application based on preliminary data to a BBSRC-NIFA call. This collaboration is multi-disciplinary combining molecular biology and computational biology |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Development of tetramers in the Babraham pig model |
| Organisation | Cardiff University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developed the aerosol delivery method of vaccine and provided material (spleen, BAL and blood) from inbred animals (Babraham pigs) following immunisation with the candidate universal vaccine, S-FLU. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Developed porcine influenza specific class I tetramers and provided the epitope map of Babrahams S-Flu responses to NP, M1, M2, PB1 and PB2 that could be presented by SLA-1 or SLA-2 Grew pig T cell clones for the first time in 30 years. |
| Impact | Multidisciplinary - immunology, virology, protein chemistry. Paper not yet published |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Distributed Bio - Gates foundation funding - universal influenza vaccine |
| Organisation | Distributed Bio. |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Pirbright has provided expert advice to the design of adjuvant and challenge studies in appropriate animal models for human influenza vaccine trials. Pirbright is facilitating these studies in line with UK home office requirements and good scientific practice. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Distributed Bio have developed a novel vaccine that is hoped to be a candidate for a human universal influenza virus vaccine. |
| Impact | Funding from Bill and Melinda Gates foundation as part of the Grand challenges - Universal vaccine for influenza for the animal studies involving Pirbright and Distributed Bio |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dr Alex Schock, APHA - Detemining the prevalence and sequences of IBDV in vaccinated chicken flocks in the UK |
| Organisation | Animal and Plant Health Agency |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We will determine whether samples are positive for IBDV. If they are positive, we will amplify the hypervariable region of the capsid by PCR and send for Sanger Sequencing |
| Collaborator Contribution | APHA will obtain samples from Veterinary Practices and perform histology. |
| Impact | we have been successful in obtaining funding (Pirbright Internal Seed Award, £10,000) |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dr Carol Cardona, University of Minnesota- avian influenza virus challenge of IBDV or mock-infected chickens |
| Organisation | University of Minnesota |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We will challenge birds that have been exposed to IBDV, or mock exposed, with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) strains to determine how IBDV-mediated immunosuppression impacts upon HPAI infection in chickens. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr Cardona's group will challenge birds that have been exposed to IBDV, or mock exposed, with low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) strains to determine how IBDV-mediated immunosuppression impacts upon LPAI infection in chickens. |
| Impact | we have been successful in obtaining funding (Grant Ref: BB/T008806/1) |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dr Caroline Denesvere |
| Organisation | French National Institute of Agricultural Research |
| Department | INRA Loire Valley Centre |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Worked together to establish a collaboration on development of feather follicular stem cell lines as a platform for the generation of cell-free vaccine against Marek's disease virus. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided expertise on cell free Marek's disease and microscopic evaluation of cells generating the virus. |
| Impact | Generation of data leading to a successful BBSRC IPA grant application |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Dr David Welchman, APHA -Detemining the prevalence and sequences of IBDV in vaccinated chicken flocks in the UK |
| Organisation | Animal and Plant Health Agency |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We wiil determine whether samples are positive for IBDV. If they are positive, we will amplify the hypervariable region of the capsid by PCR and send for Sanger Sequencing |
| Collaborator Contribution | APHA will obtain samples from Veterinary Practices and perform histology. |
| Impact | we have been successful in obtaining funding (Pirbright Internal Seed Award, £10,000) |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dr Finn Grey, The Roslin Institute- Identifying genes essential for the replicaiton of IBDV and IBV in vitro |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | The Roslin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We will conduct a CRISPR screen and identify genes that are essential for IBDV replication |
| Collaborator Contribution | Finn Grey's group will aid in the CRISPR screen |
| Impact | we have been successful in obtaining a PhD studentship |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dr Helena Maier, The Pirbright Institute - Identifying genes essential for the replicaiton of IBDV and IBV in vitro |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We will conduct a CRISPR screen and identify genes that are essential for IBDV replication |
| Collaborator Contribution | Helena Maier's group will aid in the CRISPR screen and identify genes that are essential for IBV replication |
| Impact | We have been successful in obtaining a PhD studentship |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dr Holly Shelton, The Pirbright Institute- avian influenza virus challenge of IBDV or mock-infected chickens |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We will expose birds to IBDV, compared to mock controls |
| Collaborator Contribution | Holly will train my group in conducting studies with avian influenza viruses and, together, we will challenge birds with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) strains to determine how IBDV-mediated immunosuppression impacts upon HPAI infection in chickens. |
| Impact | we have been successful in obtaining funding (Grant Ref: BB/T008806/1) |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dr Liam Morrison |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | The Roslin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Analysis is single cattle B cell antibody sequences |
| Collaborator Contribution | Single cattle B cell antibody sequences |
| Impact | None as yet |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dr Lyndsay Fry |
| Organisation | Washington State University |
| Department | Washington State University Spokane |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Single B cell sorting and antibody sequencing, developing a new methods for Theileria sp. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Providing funding and the samples from immunised animals. We have also engineered an antibody to aid in the sorting of cattle B cells |
| Impact | None as yet |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dr Michael Skinner, Imperial College London |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Department | Department of Primary Care and Public Health |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We aim to compare the host transcriptional response of primary chicken B cells infected with different strains of IBDV of varying virulence. We have the specialist reagents and expertise in house that are required to culture primary chicken B cells, and we have access to different strains of IBDV. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr Michael Skinner and his team at Imperial College London have the expertise and facilities to generate and analyse RNA-Seq data in order to determine host transcriptional responses. This is required in order to complete the aim of the project. |
| Impact | Further funding: PhD studentship (£102,800) - Dr Andrew Broadbent at The Pirbright Institute and Dr Michael Skinner at Imperial College London are joint supervisors for a PhD student working on this project. Further Funding: Houghton Trust (£8,000)- Dr Andrew Broadbent was awarded a Houghton Trust Small Research Grant to contribute to this project. Further funding: NC3Rs (Grant Ref: NC/R001138/1) |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Dr Rachel Edgar, Imperial College London- defining the circadian clock in chicken cells and how this impacts upon viral replication |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | we will supply sequences of chicken clock genes and chicken cells and challenge synchronised chicken cells with IBDV and perform in vivo experiments |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr Edagr's group will synchronise chicken cells and characterise the oscillatory expression of chicken clock genes. |
| Impact | we have been successful in obtaining funding (Houghton Trust, £4,500) |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Efficacy of a candidate universal influenza vaccine, S-FLU. |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Department | Radcliffe Department of Medicine |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Tested the immunogenicity and efficacy of a candidate universal influenza vaccine, S-FLU, in pigs. For the first time we demonstrated that S-FLU when administered by aerosol can reduce viral load in nasal swabs and lung in pigs after influenza virus challenge. We have shown that the most efficient way to administer this vaccine is by aerosol. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Professor Alain Townsend has developed the S-FLU vaccine. |
| Impact | The most efficient way to induce immune response in the lung is after aerosol delivery of LAIV vaccines in pigs. The most efficient way to induce cross-protective immunity is by aerosol delivery of S-FLU to the lungs of pigs |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Engineering mosquitoes for reduced vector competence for chikungunya virus |
| Organisation | University of Malaya |
| Department | Department of Medical Microbiology |
| Country | Malaysia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developed joint research programme, led successful application for funding, coordinate programme. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Various specific strands of research, and group discussions about results, conclusions, research progress and future activities. |
| Impact | reported under funding |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Engineering mosquitoes for reduced vector competence for chikungunya virus |
| Organisation | University of Melbourne |
| Country | Australia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developed joint research programme, led successful application for funding, coordinate programme. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Various specific strands of research, and group discussions about results, conclusions, research progress and future activities. |
| Impact | reported under funding |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Engineering mosquitoes for reduced vector competence for chikungunya virus |
| Organisation | University of Tartu |
| Department | Institute of Technology |
| Country | Estonia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developed joint research programme, led successful application for funding, coordinate programme. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Various specific strands of research, and group discussions about results, conclusions, research progress and future activities. |
| Impact | reported under funding |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Establishment of a novel poultry vaccine platform inducing rapid and strong immunity through targeted delivery of antigens to chicken immune cells |
| Organisation | MSD Animal Health |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The research focus is to develop next-generation of poultry vaccines that induce rapid and strong immune responses in chickens. The candidate vaccine constricts will be developed at the Pirbright Institute |
| Collaborator Contribution | The collaborating partner "MSD Animal Health" will evaluate the potency and efficacy for registration and feasibility for commercial production. |
| Impact | Based on the project preliminary data a new project was developed entitled Protecting poultry from avian influenza, Newcastle disease, infectious bronchitis, and Gumboro disease with a single dose of a multivalent vaccine". This project further strengthened the collaborative research work with MSD Animal Health. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Evaluation of COVID-19 vaccine candidate immunogenicity in pigs |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Expertise in evaluating vaccine immunogenicity in pigs |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided COVID-19 vaccine candidates |
| Impact | Joint publication on the evaluation of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-020-00221-3). Data included in in the pre-clinical dossier submitted to regulators (e.g., European Medicines Agency) and supported the successful Marketing Authorisation application. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Evaluation of COVID-19 vaccine candidate immunogenicity in pigs |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Expertise in evaluating vaccine immunogenicity in pigs |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided COVID-19 vaccine candidates |
| Impact | Joint publication on the evaluation of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-020-00221-3). Data included in in the pre-clinical dossier submitted to regulators (e.g., European Medicines Agency) and supported the successful Marketing Authorisation application. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Evaluation of COVID-19 vaccine candidate immunogenicity in pigs |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Expertise of using the pig as a model to evaluate vaccine immunogenicity. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of COVID-19 vaccine candidates |
| Impact | The immunogenicity data of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 in pigs was included in the pre-clinical dossier submitted to regulators (e.g., European Medicines Agency) and supported the successful Marketing Authorisation application. The immunogenicity data of RBD-SpyVLP in pigs helped support secure funding to further develop with vaccine candidate and to enter clinical trials. Published papers to date: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-020-00221-3 and https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20654-7 |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Evaluation of bovine herpesvirus-4 as a vaccine vector for pigs |
| Organisation | University of Parma |
| Country | Italy |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Expertise in porcine vaccinology/immunology |
| Collaborator Contribution | Expertise in the generation of recombinant bovine herpesvirus-4 (BoHV-4) vectors expressing heterologous antigens |
| Impact | We demonstrated that immunisation of pigs with recombinant BoHV-4 vectors expressing Nipah virus glycoproteins are highly immunogenic in pigs. Most promising and as hypothesised, were the potent CD4 and CD8 T cell responses which were an order of greater than those induced by other viral vaccine vectors. These data have led to the external funding of projects by two companies to evaluate BoHV-4 vectors in the context of other porcine diseases. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Evaluation of immune checkpoint inhibitors as molecular adjuvants for improved PRRSV vaccines |
| Organisation | Leidos |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Expertise in PRRSV immunology |
| Collaborator Contribution | Patented immune checkpoint inhibitors |
| Impact | No yet |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Evaluation of mRNA vectored vaccines in pigs |
| Organisation | University of Pennsylvania |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Expertise in porcine immunology/vaccinology |
| Collaborator Contribution | Expertise in mRNA vaccines |
| Impact | We evaluated in pigs the immunogenicity an mRNA vector encoding a Nipah virus glycoprotein. This vaccine formulation induced high virus neutralising antibody titres (comparable with protein subunit in adjuvant) and T cell responses (comparable with viral vectors). We also utilised mRNA immunised pigs to isolate Nipah virus neutralising monoclonal antibodies. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Evaluation of multivalent viral hemorrhagic fever vaccine candidates immunogenicity in pigs |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Supported the pre-clinical development of multivalent viral hemorrhagic fever vaccine candidates by evaluating their immunogenicity in pigs |
| Collaborator Contribution | Conceived and produced vaccine candidates |
| Impact | Still ongoing. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Evaluation of solid dose vaccines for livestock |
| Organisation | Enesi Pharma |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Expertise in PRRSV and vaccine evaluation |
| Collaborator Contribution | Expertise in vaccine formulation |
| Impact | Multidisciplinary collaboration between formulation scientist and viral immunologists. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Exploiting mosquito immunity for generating refractory mosquitoes |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I brought my expertise in mosquito immunology and viral evasion of innate immune responses in vertebrates and invertebrates. I provided intellectual input into the project and provided training for one research assistant. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partner (Luke Alphey, The Pirbright Institute) brought their expertise in mosquito transgenesis and molecular approaches to developing refractory mosquitoes that cannot transmit viruses. The partner also provided intellectual input into the project. |
| Impact | The following publications are associated with this collaboration: DOI: 10.3390/v13112116 |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Factor H and influenza virus |
| Organisation | Brunel University London |
| Department | Brunel Arts |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our research team are hosting a PhD student from Brunel University to facilitate the investigation of any interaction between influenza virus and complement factor H. We are providing reagents, expertise in handling influenza virus and advice on the scientific hypothesis of the research programme. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Brunel university initiated the project and provided reagents including antibodies and methods for purification human co-factor H protein. They also provide funding for this PhD studentship. |
| Impact | No outcomes as yet |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Finn Grey - CRISPR and ISG screens |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | The Roslin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | My research team is providing expertise in coronavirus biology and regulation of the host cell environment. Laboratory experiments are being performed by my team. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Finn's team have provided reagents and are advising on experimental design and data analysis. |
| Impact | Cas-9 expressing avian cells have been generated and validated. Optimisation of the CRISPR screen is underway. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Gene editing chickens with Roslin |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | Roslin Institute Transgenic Chicken Facility |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have provided infectious pathogen challenge and infectious pathogen sample processing facilities in this collaboration. We infected the transgenic chickens with avian influenza virus and processed the samples following challenge. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Helen Sang and Mike McGrew at The Roslin Institute (University of Edinburgh) contributed by producing and providing transgenic chickens (Split GFP) for challenge. Expertise in genotype screening the transgenic birds was shared with us. |
| Impact | We have now successfully received a BBSRC responsive mode grant to carry out more transgenic bird challenges with influenza viruses. BB/S007911/1 -Investigating the role of ANP32A in the replication of avian Influenza virus. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Generation of immortalised bovine antigen presenting cells |
| Organisation | University of Surrey |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Using a lentivirus vector expressing proto-oncogenic genes, we generated MHC-defined immortal bovine antigen presenting cells that can be used in antigen presentation studies or virus-host interaction studies in the future. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The University of Surrey provided several lenvirus vectors and preparation for immortalization studies. |
| Impact | A publication in progress titled "Generation of immortal bovine antigen presenting cells" and the generation of a library of MHC-defined bovine cell lines. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Horizon Discovery Ltd Cambridge Research Park, United Kingdom |
| Organisation | Horizon Discovery Group plc |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Verify IFITM knock-out cell by qPCR and immuno-blotting. Verification of further knock-out cell lines by DNA sequencing, immuno-blotting and qPCR Cell infection with Avian Influenza Viruses Assess the viral titre of cells infected with Influenza Viruses in K/O and wildtype cells. Quantitative analysis of viral infection in IFITM K/O cells Demonstrate increased AIV viral titres at lab scale and estimation of what this may equate to with respect to vaccine dose yields. Analysis of IFITM K/O cell lines permissivity to a range of additional animal viruses (Relevant to the LVIF). Milestone 7: Demonstrate permissivity increased and viral titres for a range of LVIF relevant viruses in the edited cell lines. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Develop a CRISPR/cas9 gene editing system to specifically target the chIFITM locus in avian cell culture |
| Impact | Grant funding |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | ILRI Research Collaboration (Kenya, March 2017) |
| Organisation | International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) |
| Country | Kenya |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Exchange of ideas and samples for indigenous breeds of livestock |
| Collaborator Contribution | Contributed samples for analysis. |
| Impact | Analysis of indigenous breed genomic sequences for Immune function genes. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Identification of conserved B-cell epitopes of highly pathogenic coronaviruses for broadspectrum immunotherapy and vaccine design. |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have performed experiments to generate preliminary data for a collaborative grant application, contributed to the writing of the grant proposal and responded to reviewers comments. |
| Collaborator Contribution | My collaborators have performed experiments to generate preliminary data for a collaborative grant application, contributed to the writing of the grant proposal and responded to reviewers comments. |
| Impact | Submission of proposal entitled "Identification of conserved B-cell epitopes of highly pathogenic coronaviruses for broadspectrum immunotherapy and vaccine design" to the "One Health Approaches to Accelerate Vaccine Development" call that forms part of the UK government's commitment to Official Development Assistance (ODA) in October 2017. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Identification of conserved B-cell epitopes of highly pathogenic coronaviruses for broadspectrum immunotherapy and vaccine design. |
| Organisation | University of Kent |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have performed experiments to generate preliminary data for a collaborative grant application, contributed to the writing of the grant proposal and responded to reviewers comments. |
| Collaborator Contribution | My collaborators have performed experiments to generate preliminary data for a collaborative grant application, contributed to the writing of the grant proposal and responded to reviewers comments. |
| Impact | Submission of proposal entitled "Identification of conserved B-cell epitopes of highly pathogenic coronaviruses for broadspectrum immunotherapy and vaccine design" to the "One Health Approaches to Accelerate Vaccine Development" call that forms part of the UK government's commitment to Official Development Assistance (ODA) in October 2017. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Identification of human orthologues of bovine Workshop Cluster 1 genes |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Department | Nuffield Department of Medicine |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The Workshop Cluster 1 (WC1) gene family encodes a group of proteins thought to be involved in immune recognition. These genes are exclusively expressed on T cells expressing the gamma and delta T cell receptor and are well characterized in the bovine system. We have began investigating the presence and expression of WC1 on human cells using co-immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry analysis of putatitve human WC1 genes. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Univ. of Oxford has developed a pipeline to identify protein fragments using mass spectrometry and bioinformatics from putative proteins from which little or no information is currently known. This pipeline has been applied to identify putative human WC1 proteins obtained from co-immunoprecipitation/mass spectrometry studies. |
| Impact | The identification of one human WC1 gene/protein. A publication in progress titled "Identification of the human orthologue of a Workshop Cluster 1 gene expressed on gammadelta T cells" |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Identification of sows with antibodies broadly neutralising PRRSV |
| Organisation | University of Lleida |
| Country | Spain |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Expertise in PRRSV immunology |
| Collaborator Contribution | Access to large numbers of sows routinely vaccinated and exposed to PRRSV |
| Impact | Not yet |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Imperial |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Joint supervision of PhD student |
| Collaborator Contribution | Joint supervision of PhD student |
| Impact | One successful completed PhD student. Papers published or in preparation. Another PhD student in progress. |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | Influenza and co-factor H protein |
| Organisation | Leibniz Association |
| Department | Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We are screening influenza virus interaction with co-factor H proteins to determine the interaction interface. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Christine Skerka has provided fragment factor H peptides to facilitate our mapping studies of the interaction surface with influenza viruses. |
| Impact | No outcomes as yet |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Investigating antigenic determinants inducing stronger and broader cross-protective immunity among H5 avian influenza viruses |
| Organisation | Royal Veterinary College (RVC) |
| Department | Veterinary Basic Sciences |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The overarching aims of the proposed research are to improve controls against H5 subtype of avian influenza viruses infecting poultry by investigating underlying mechanisms that define how vaccines renders effectiveness and develop novel approaches enhancing the effectiveness of H5 avian influenza vaccines. We recently generated a panel of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that recognise a variety of different clades of H5 viruses. Propagation of AIV in eggs or cultured cells together with mAbs drives virus to escape from mAbs neutralisation activity. These classical virus neutralization assays (VN) followed by HA gene sequence analysis allowed us to defined the role of amino acid substitutions that are associated with evasion of antibody neutralization through emergence of antigenic variants and failure of vaccine efficacy. |
| Collaborator Contribution | provided intellectual input for achieving prescribed objectives of this work. |
| Impact | Talk entitled "Molecular determinants for antigenicity and vaccine efficacy of avian influenza viruses" was presented at Newton Agham Researcher Links Workshop " Novel Vaccines and Diagnostic Technologies against Emerging and re-emerging Veterinary Pathogens" at Rizal Park Hotel, Manila, Philippines, 4-7 February 2019. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Investigating antigenic determinants inducing stronger and broader cross-protective immunity among H5 avian influenza viruses. |
| Organisation | Royal Veterinary College (RVC) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We developed research programme to characterise diversity of antigenic epitopes induce protective immunity in chickens against H5 subtypes of avian influenza viruses. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaborating partner Dr Nicola Lewis at Royal Veterinary College provide advise to on cartography programme to visualize the antigenic similarity or difference among different strains of influenza viruses. |
| Impact | The work under this collaborative determined the antigenic differences among different clades of H5 avian influenza viruses circulating in birds. This project is multi-disciplinary. our laboratory mainly work on virology and immunology part of the project and we seek help on computer modeling part from the collaborating partner Dr Nicola Lewis. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Investigating the role of the SH protein of RSV in the duration of immunity |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Department | Department of Medicine |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We provided initial data supporting the hypothesis that the small hydrophobic protein of bovine respiratory syncytial virus regulates the host's immune response by modulating the transcription factors NF-kB and STAT1 in bovine cells |
| Collaborator Contribution | Based on our results, Imperial has began investigating the role of the small hydrophobic protein of human respiratory syncytial virus on human cells. |
| Impact | Publication in progress titled "Regulation of the B cell activating factor BAFF by the small hydrophobic protein of respiratory syncytial virus". |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Invitation to participate in the Vaccine Innovation Forum 2017 at Shanghai 26-27 April 2017 |
| Organisation | Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences |
| Department | Shanghai Veterinary Research Institute |
| Country | China |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Prof. Nair was invited to participate in the Vaccine Innovation Forum 2017 at Shanghai 26-27 April 2017 to present a talk on 'Novel Vaccine Development for Avian Virus Diseases'. He also participated in the round table discussions on the challenges and opportunities in the vaccines and vaccination sector |
| Collaborator Contribution | Vaccine Innovation Forum will help in expanding the future collaborations and activities of the UK-China Centre of Excellence for Research on Avian Diseases (http://www.uk-china-cerad.org/). |
| Impact | organised joint meeting in China and the UK to discuss on challenges and opportunities |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | JN - Preparation of capped mesoporpus silica nanoparticles |
| Organisation | Polytechnic University of Valencia |
| Country | Spain |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We were involved with testing the nanoparticles once they had been made. We also contributed purified antibody and shipped it to our collaborators for the generation of one type of nanoparticle, which we subsequently tested. We were involved with the intellectual design of experiments |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners generated the nanoparticles and shipped them to us for testing. Our partners were also involved with the intellectual design of experiments. |
| Impact | Experimental work performed to investigate the use of mesoporous silica nanoparticles to detect FMDV proteases in clinical samples |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | JS - Production of monoclonal antibodies that recognise FMDV VP4 from mouse spleens |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | The Roslin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | VLPs displaying the N-terminal 15 amino acids of FMDV were designed and produced at The Pirbright Institute and then mice were immunised with them. The spleens of the immunised mice were harvested and splenocytes stored. The response to the VP4 sequence was checked by ELISA and the mouse with the best response was selected to send the splenocytes for monoclonal production. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The collaborators took the splenocytes obtained from the mouse experiments and carried out the fusions. They then screened the supernatants for positive wells that detected the VP4 sequence. |
| Impact | Positive wells have been identified indicating some monoclonals that are specific for VP4 have been generated. These will be further screened for ability to recognise virus and to neutralise infection. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Janet Daly & Stephen Dunham- PI3K pathway and influenza |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Department | School of Veterinary Medicine and Science Nottingham |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Preliminary data was produced by Pirbright using reverse genetics of avian influenza viruses to secure a 50:50 funded PhD studentship that will commence in October 2020 entitled "Understanding the importance of the PI3K pathway in modulating influenza virus replication in chickens and ducks". |
| Collaborator Contribution | Preliminary data was produced by University of Nottingham using PI3K p85 subunit pulldowns to secure a 50:50 funded PhD studentship that will commence in October 2020 entitled "Understanding the importance of the PI3K pathway in modulating influenza virus replication in chickens and ducks". |
| Impact | Funding for a PhD studentship entitled "Understanding the importance of the PI3K pathway in modulating influenza virus replication in chickens and ducks". |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Leeds FBS |
| Organisation | University of Leeds |
| Department | Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Research |
| Collaborator Contribution | Research and student supervision |
| Impact | Research |
| Start Year | 2009 |
| Description | Linking sex determination and dosage compensation in a mosquito Anopheles gambiae |
| Organisation | University of Zurich |
| Department | Institute of Molecular Life Sciences |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Developed a new research program. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided intellectual input, contributed to drafting a joined grant proposal. |
| Impact | No output yet. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Maria Harkiolaki - soft xray tomography |
| Organisation | Diamond Light Source |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The project aims to characterise coronavirus replication organelles in whole infected cells. My team provides significant experience in coronavirus replication organelles. The project is funded by a joint studentship and the student is, predominantly based in my laboratory. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Maria's team provide extensive expertise in soft Xray tomography and are advising on experimental design and dat aanalysis. |
| Impact | Preliminary experiments have been performed to visualise replication organelle membranes. Optimisation of experimental set up is underway. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Martin Ludlow - University of Veterinary Medicine, Hanover. Morbillivirus collaboration. |
| Organisation | University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provision of technical information and advice about the host-range of morbilliviruses. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of reagents to support our research project, e.g. plasmid clones of viral attachment proteins and receptors. |
| Impact | No outcomes as yet, only preliminary data. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Martin Turner - The role of cellular RNA binding proteins in Coronavirus replication |
| Organisation | Babraham Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | My lab has begun to establish the use of a CRISPR library targeting cellular RNA binding proteins. This includes selecting the most appropriate cells, virus and conditions for the screen and the readout method and this is based on our expertise and experience in coronavirus biology. All experimental work for the collaboration has been performed in my laboratory. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Martin Turner has provided a CRISPR knockout library targeting human and murine RNA binding proteins. He has provided advice and protocols to allow us to establish the screen using human or murine coronaviruses and will advise on analysis of data following the screen. |
| Impact | Experiments are still in initial set up stages and no results have been generated to date. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Miguel Ángel Muñoz Alía - Mayo clinic, USA. Measles population diversity. |
| Organisation | Mayo Clinic |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Technical support and sharing of research data on the host-range of morbilliviruses. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of plasmid clones representing the broad genetic diversity of measles attachment and fusion proteins. Technical support. |
| Impact | No outcomes as yet. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Miles Carroll PHE collaboration on pseudotyping |
| Organisation | Public Health England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Provision of reagents to perform pseudotyping of Ebola G protein Hosting of visiting students to attempt sarbecovirus pseudotyping |
| Collaborator Contribution | Discussion of preliminary data Provision of sarbecovirus constructs |
| Impact | None to date, publications in preparation. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Mosquito Interest Group |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Organising and attending meetings of students, RAs, postdocs and PIs on mosquito biology and related techniques. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Organising and attending meetings of students, RAs, postdocs and PIs on mosquito biology and related techniques. |
| Impact | Exchange of practical techniques, for instance in tracking oviposition of individual mosquitoes. Brainstorming for projects and papers, resulting in a GCRF VBD network proposal (which passed the first review but was not funded in the second) and an informal collaboration (which was intended for submission to UK-Thai call in 2017 but Thai partner was not eligible). Exchanges of colony strains of insects planned this month. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Mucosally Associated Invariant T cells (MAIT) in pig influenza model |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Identified MAIT cells in pig Influenza model. Provide samples from infected and immunised protected animals |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provide expertise in characterising MAIT: development of tetramer; Zell scanner technology allowing high resolution studies of cell phenotype and functions |
| Impact | Joint PhD studentship with Paul Klenerman, University of Oxford |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Next-generation PRRSV vaccines |
| Organisation | Eco Animal Health Ltd |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Know how in terms of genetically manipulating PRRSV and evaluating PRRSV vaccines. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Financial contribution and know how in terms of developing a commercial vaccine. |
| Impact | Too early. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Next-generation PRRSV vaccines |
| Organisation | Huvepharma |
| Country | Bulgaria |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Expertise in PRRSV virology and immunology |
| Collaborator Contribution | Funding |
| Impact | Too early, project ongoing. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Nicolas Locker - Investigation of translation regulation by infectious bronchitis virus |
| Organisation | University of Surrey |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | My team provide experience in molecular virology and cellular interactions of coronaviruses including previous experience of accessory proteins regulating cellular translation. One PhD student has successfully completed his studies working jointly between our labs and a second is due to begin in October 2022. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr Locker's team provide expertise in viral regulation of cellular translation and stress granule signalling. Dr Locker is also providing protocols, advice and training for techniques including ribopuromycylation and ribosome profiling. |
| Impact | PhD student funding (studentship Oct 2017- Sept 2021) - Control of host cell translation by infectious bronchitis virus PhD student funding (studentship Oct 2022- Mar 2026) - Coronavirus regulation of cellular antiviral responses and cross species transmission |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Outreach Network for Gene Drive Research |
| Organisation | Outreach Network for Gene Drive Research |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Input to policy discussions |
| Collaborator Contribution | Network is engaged in briefing national and international entities, e.g. EU/EC, European Parliament, IUCN, Convention on Biological Diversity, on issues related to gene drive. Outreach also relates to general public (directly and via media) as well as policymakers, regulators and practitioners. The Pirbright Institute is now a member of the Network |
| Impact | Briefing and media comment regarding gene drives and gene drive research to multiple agencies e.g. EU/EC, European Parliament, IUCN, Convention on Biological Diversity, on issues related to gene drive. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Oxford - Strubi |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration on virus structural biology and joint PhD studentship |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaboration on virus structural biology and joint PhD studentship |
| Impact | Collaboration on virus structural biology has produced a number of novel virus structures and new understanding of virus entry and packaging |
| Start Year | 2008 |
| Description | Oxford University Collaborations |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Department | Big Data Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Scientific discussion, collaboration and manuscript preparation |
| Collaborator Contribution | Scientific discussion, collaboration and manuscript preparation |
| Impact | Manuscript in preparation |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Parham Lab at Stanford |
| Organisation | Stanford University |
| Department | School of Medicine |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our group designed the experiments and generated a majority of the data. We also led the analysis of the data and writing of the manuscripts |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Parham lab is the leading group worldwide in the evolutionary study of NK cell receptors and MHC class I. This group generated part of the data and helped in the analysis, interpretation and manuscript preparation |
| Impact | Definition of the Cattle Killer Cell Igndash like Receptor Gene Family: Comparison with Aurochs and Human Counterparts Nicholas D. Sanderson, Paul J. Norman, Lisbeth A. Guethlein, Shirley Ellis, Christina Williams, Matthew Breen, Steven D. E. Park, David A. Magee, Farbod Babrzadeh, Andrew Warry, Mick Watson, Daniel G. Bradley, David E. MacHugh, Peter Parham, and John A. Hammond. Journal of Immunology, Dec 15, 2014; 193 (12) This collaboration is not multi-didciplinary |
| Start Year | 2009 |
| Description | Partnering with National Taiwan University |
| Organisation | National Taiwan University |
| Country | Taiwan, Province of China |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have prepared and submitted an application for a BBSRC-Taiwan Partnering Award to study "Assembly of Recombinant Infectious Bronchitis Virus and Determination of Antigenic Sites that Confer Hemagglutination Activity". |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partners conceived the project and got in contact about submitting an application for funding together. |
| Impact | An application has been made for a BBSRC-Taiwan Partnering Award in November 2018. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Paul Digard & Reidun Twarock - Packaging signals |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | The Roslin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Supply of reverse genetic avian influenza viruses for the successful award of a PhD studentship based at The Roslin Institute entitled "Identification of interaction sites between the genomic segments of influenza virus as putative novel anti-viral targets". |
| Collaborator Contribution | University of York is providing mathematical modelling algorithms of viral packaging. Paul Digard- Roslin Institute is providing influenza virology expertise and hosting the student. |
| Impact | Studentship commenced in October 2019 |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Paul Digard & Reidun Twarock - Packaging signals |
| Organisation | University of York |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Supply of reverse genetic avian influenza viruses for the successful award of a PhD studentship based at The Roslin Institute entitled "Identification of interaction sites between the genomic segments of influenza virus as putative novel anti-viral targets". |
| Collaborator Contribution | University of York is providing mathematical modelling algorithms of viral packaging. Paul Digard- Roslin Institute is providing influenza virology expertise and hosting the student. |
| Impact | Studentship commenced in October 2019 |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Paul Digard - The Roslin Insititute |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | The Roslin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We generated constructs that express PB1-F2 from a variety of avian influenza strains in eukaryotic expression plasmids. We generated Chimera PB1-F2 expression plasmids where the C-terminus of the PB1-F2 are switched between strains. Using these plasmids we have determined the localization and antagonist activity toward the IFN beta signaling pathway and NF-kb signaling pathway in human and chicken cells. We have therefore provided reagents and intellectual input to the collaboration. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our collaborators have used these plasmids in there well defined stability assays to determine sequence specific effects on this characteristic. Intellectual input and expertise in a particular assay were made by these collaborators. |
| Impact | We have successfully published some of this work; "The cellular localization of avian influenza virus PB1-F2 protein alters the magnitude of IFN2 promoter and NF?B-dependent promoter antagonism in chicken cells." doi: 10.1099/jgv.0.001220. We have an ongoing joint PhD studentship in this area. This collaboration remains current and active. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Paul Verkade - Electron tomography and CLEM |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Department | Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Nicole Doyle has performed electron tomography to analyse the three dimensional structure of membrane rearrangements induced by the expression of IBV non-structural proteins 4 or 3 and 4 in the absence of other viral components. Sample set up was performed at Pirbright and analysis was subsequently performed at University of Bristol followed by additional analysis at Pirbright. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Paul has assisted with electron tomography data generation providing access to electron microscopes in Bristol as well as training for Nicole Doyle in performing experiments and analysing and modelling data. He is also advising Nicole while establishing correlative light electron microscopy at Pirbright. |
| Impact | doi: 10.3390/v10090477 |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Pirbright-Diamond collaboration |
| Organisation | Diamond Light Source |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | 50% of my time is now based at Diamond, I am considered in-house staff and can apply to use the instrumentation. I feed projects to eBIC for collaboration using advanced electron microscopy, centered around cell biology of host-pathogen interactions using advanced electron microscopy, plus potential use of Xray microscopy (on application). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Instrument time on cryo-FIB-SEM and screening TEM (two days per month). Diamond have loaned us a plunge freezing device. |
| Impact | No outputs yet |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Professor Benedikt Kaufer |
| Organisation | Free University of Berlin |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Providing knowledge and methodologies. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Providing reagents and methodologies to perform experiments. |
| Impact | Two publications from this collaboration: Gurung A, Kamble N, Kaufer BB, Pathan A, Shahriar Behboudi. Association of Marek's Disease induced immunosuppression with activation of a novel regulatory T cells in chickens, PLoS Pathogens, 2017, 13 (12), e1006745. Boodhoo N, Kamble N, Kaufer BB, Shahriar Behboudi. Replication of Marek's disease virus is dependent on de novo synthesis of fatty acid and Prostaglandin E2. J Virol. 2019 Apr 10 |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Professor Helen Sang,The Roslin Institute - GFP1-10 expressing transgenic chickens |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | The Roslin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have developed IBDV tagged to GFP11 |
| Collaborator Contribution | Helen Sang's group at the Roslin Institute have developed transcgenic chicken lines that constitutively express GFP1-10 in every cell. |
| Impact | we have been successful in obtaining funding (Grant Ref: BB/S014594/1) |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Professor Jim Kaufman |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provided information on CD4 T cell epitopes derived from Marek's disease virus |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided knowledge and information on assessing peptide binding to chicken MHC molecules |
| Impact | Generation of data leading to understanding correlate of protection against Marek's disease virus. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Professor Shayan Sharif, University of Guelph, Canada |
| Organisation | University of Guelph |
| Department | Department of Pathobiology |
| Country | Canada |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration between my team and Professor Sharif lead to new finding in Avian immunology, specifically in understanding the effects of nutrients on antigen presenting cells and T cells of chicken. We took the lead in studying the effects of some nutrients (Vitamin D) on the function of chicken T cells, performed most of the experiments in our laboratory. Meanwhile, we participated in studying the effects of Vitamin D on antigen presenting cells of chicken by performing some key experiments because we had access to some specific reagents (monoclonal antibodies) recognizing molecules expressed on chicken antigen presenting cells. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Professor Sharif team took the lead in studying the effects of Vitamin D on antigen presenting cells of chicken, and contributed to experimental plan for studying the effects on chicken T cells. |
| Impact | Two publications in 2015 and 2016: 1. Nitish Boodhoo, Shayan Sharif, Shahriar Behboudi. 1a,25(OH)2 Vitamin D3 Modulates Avian T Lymphocyte Functions without Inducing CTL Unresponsiveness. PLoS One. 2016 Feb 24;11(2):e0150134 2. Bahram Shojadoost, Shahriar Behboudi, Villanueva AI, Jennifer Brisbin, Ali Ashkar, Shayan Sharif. Vitamin D3 modulates the function of chicken macrophages. Res. Vet. Sci. 2015 June, 100: 45-51 |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Protein Production UK (Formerly the Oxford Protein Production Facility) |
| Organisation | Rosalind Franklin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We are providing the sequences of antibodies from various species to add into the vectors at Oxford to produce species specific antibodies. We are also providing and devloping assays to measure recombinant antibody confirmation and binding. |
| Collaborator Contribution | PPUK is providing access to all their facilities as well as expertise. They are also providing their vector backbone as the template for antibody production. |
| Impact | None as yet |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Pseudoparticles of influenza for interaction studies with co-factor H |
| Organisation | University of Kent |
| Department | Medway School of Pharmacy |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Hospitals |
| PI Contribution | We have screened the interaction between influenza pseudotype particles that only contain the surface HA protein from influenza viruses for interaction with human co-factor H protein. We have screen pseudotype particles of multiple influenza subtypes. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Nigel Temperton of the viral Pseudotype Unit at the School of Pharmacy provided influenza virus pseudotype particles of multiple subtypes to allow us to screen for interaction with co-factor H protein. |
| Impact | No outcomes yet |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Pseudotyping virus collaboration with Dr. Tess Lambe, University of Oxford |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of assays and reagents to support successful pseudotyping of various viruses for quantitative entry assays |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of reagents and plasmid clones |
| Impact | No outputs yet, |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Rapid acquisition of mammalian characteristics by avian influenza virus in single host infections. |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provided reagents and day to day technical help for undertaking this project and supervising postdoctoral researcher working on this project. Reagents include influenza reverse genetic plasmids and H9N2 and H7N9-specific antibodies. |
| Collaborator Contribution | this project will aim to understand AIV genetics that facilitate the rapid acquisition of mammalian adaptation characteristics in a single host infection. The partners with our collaborations determined adaptive genetic changes in the H9N2 avian influenza virus following infection in mice (mammalian hosts). Different strains of avian influenza Viruses generated by reverse gentic techniques were inoculated into mice and lungs sampled daily. RNA recovered from lung homogenates were deep sequenced and mutations arising were characterised for adaptation. Relative viral fitness and the rapidity of the accumulation of mutations was measured and compared amongst the viral strains. |
| Impact | The results of the our experimental studies showed the avian-origin viruses rapidly acquired mutations that increase virus fitness in mammalian species. Therefore, these viruses pose zoonotic and pandemic threat to public health. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Rapid acquisition of mammalian characteristics by avian influenza virus in single host infections. |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provided reagents and day to day technical help for undertaking this project and supervising postdoctoral researcher working on this project. Reagents include influenza reverse genetic plasmids and H9N2 and H7N9-specific antibodies. |
| Collaborator Contribution | this project will aim to understand AIV genetics that facilitate the rapid acquisition of mammalian adaptation characteristics in a single host infection. The partners with our collaborations determined adaptive genetic changes in the H9N2 avian influenza virus following infection in mice (mammalian hosts). Different strains of avian influenza Viruses generated by reverse gentic techniques were inoculated into mice and lungs sampled daily. RNA recovered from lung homogenates were deep sequenced and mutations arising were characterised for adaptation. Relative viral fitness and the rapidity of the accumulation of mutations was measured and compared amongst the viral strains. |
| Impact | The results of the our experimental studies showed the avian-origin viruses rapidly acquired mutations that increase virus fitness in mammalian species. Therefore, these viruses pose zoonotic and pandemic threat to public health. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Reannotation of the Anopheles gambiae genome |
| Organisation | Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Generated and provided RNA-seq data from the developmental transcriptome of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae Manually browsed the transcriptomic data in the genome context and provided coordinates for genome regions with not annotated genes or genes requiring annotation corrections. Generated and provided FAIRE-seq data from embryo samples of Anopheles gambiae to identify regulatory elements controlling early embryo development. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Conducting reannotation of the Anopheles gambiae genome based on RNA-seq data from the developmental transcriptome. Mapping the FAIRE-seq data to the genome and linking the mapped data the RNA-seq data. |
| Impact | No outputs yet |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Reannotation of the Anopheles gambiae genome |
| Organisation | Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) |
| Country | Spain |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Generated and provided RNA-seq data from the developmental transcriptome of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae Manually browsed the transcriptomic data in the genome context and provided coordinates for genome regions with not annotated genes or genes requiring annotation corrections. Generated and provided FAIRE-seq data from embryo samples of Anopheles gambiae to identify regulatory elements controlling early embryo development. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Conducting reannotation of the Anopheles gambiae genome based on RNA-seq data from the developmental transcriptome. Mapping the FAIRE-seq data to the genome and linking the mapped data the RNA-seq data. |
| Impact | No outputs yet |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Reannotation of the Anopheles gambiae genome |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Generated and provided RNA-seq data from the developmental transcriptome of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae Manually browsed the transcriptomic data in the genome context and provided coordinates for genome regions with not annotated genes or genes requiring annotation corrections. Generated and provided FAIRE-seq data from embryo samples of Anopheles gambiae to identify regulatory elements controlling early embryo development. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Conducting reannotation of the Anopheles gambiae genome based on RNA-seq data from the developmental transcriptome. Mapping the FAIRE-seq data to the genome and linking the mapped data the RNA-seq data. |
| Impact | No outputs yet |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Research Collaboration with Nigeria (23rd - 28th January 2017) |
| Organisation | University of Nigeria |
| Country | Nigeria |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Analysis of rare breed indigenous chicken in Nigeria. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Helped with sampling and background information of the breed. |
| Impact | Analysis is ongoing. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Roslin - Grey |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | The Roslin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Co-investigator in BBSRC project grant Collaboration in genetic screens to understand virus host interactions |
| Collaborator Contribution | Co-investigator in BBSRC project grant Collaboration in genetic screens to understand virus host interactions |
| Impact | Co-investigator in BBSRC project grant Collaboration in genetic screens to understand virus host interactions |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Stathis Giotis - Bat immunity and differential gene expression |
| Organisation | University of Essex |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The project aims to understand the role of viral regulation of innate immune signalling in coronavirus cross-species transmission, My research team provides expertise in coronavirus biology and host cell interaction, including reverse genetics. Laboratory experiments associated with this project are conducted by my team. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Stathis has provided bat cells and bat interferon reporter plasmids, as well as advice and expertise, to perform experiments. He will also perform data analysis of planned experiments to interrogate differential gene expression of cells infected with different viruses. |
| Impact | To early in the project to say. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Stephen Graham collaboration on structural biology with University of Cambridge |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provision of data and sharing of experimental ideas regarding viral host range and techniques for simulating virus evolution |
| Collaborator Contribution | Structural analysis of mutants to viral glycoproteins |
| Impact | Journal of Virology paper on potential PPRV emergence in human populations (Abdullah et al, 2018) Application of error-prone PCR to functionally probe the morbillivirus Haemagglutinin protein. Gallo G, Conceicao C, Tsirigoti C, Willett B, Graham S and Bailey D. Journal of General Virology. J Gen Virol 2021 Apr;102(4). doi: 10.1099/jgv.0.001580. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33739251/ The SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein has a broad tropism for mammalian ACE2 proteins. Conceicao C, Thakur N, Human S, Kelly JT, Logan L, Bialy D, Bhat S, Stevenson-Leggett P, Zagrajek AK, Hollinghurst P, Varga M, Tsirigoti C, Tully M, Chiu C, Moffat K, Silesian AP, Hammond JA, Maier HJ, Bickerton E, Shelton H, Dietrich I, Graham SC, Bailey D. PLoS Biology. 2020 Dec 21;18(12):e3001016. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001016. eCollection 2020 Dec. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33347434/ |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Steve Goodbourn - St Georges - chicken innate molecule interactions. |
| Organisation | Ulster University |
| Department | Biomedical Sciences Research Centre |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have collaborated by producing yeast- 2-hybrid plasmids containing the influenza PB1-F2 gene from various avian influenza strains. The PhD student on this studentship then visited Professor Goodbourn's laboratory to carry out the yeast-2-hybrid screen for interaction innate chicken molecules. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Professor Goodbourn's laboratory provided yeast-2-hybrid plasmids containing various innate chicken molecules to be screened for interaction with avian influenza virus PB1-F2 protein. They also offered help and guidance carrying out the interaction technique to understand if PB1-F2 directly associated with chicken innate components. They also provided reporter plasmids and guidance on innate reporter assays in chicken cells. |
| Impact | Successful publication of work. doi: 10.1099/jgv.0.001220. The cellular localization of avian influenza virus PB1-F2 protein alters the magnitude of IFN2 promoter and NF?B-dependent promoter antagonism in chicken cells. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | Animal and Plant Health Agency |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | Bern University of Applied Sciences |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | ETH Zurich |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | Friedrich Loeffler Institute |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | Lancaster University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | Queen's University Belfast |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | Texas A&M University-Central Texas |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | University of Greenwich |
| Department | Natural Resources Institute Greenwich |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | University of Liverpool |
| Department | School of Veterinary Science Liverpool |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | University of Reading |
| Department | School of Biological Sciences Reading |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | Wageningen University & Research |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Supply of Arthropods to External Partners |
| Organisation | Zoological Society of London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis (biting midge) and Culex pipiens (mosquito) provided as pupae for insecticide, repellent and vector competence trials as a resource. UK supplies conducted under National Capability Grant. Approximately 30 000 insects shipped during reporting period for academic users. All insect production took place at Pirbright and training in maintenance was provided to a worker from FLI (Germany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Daughter line of C. sonorensis was established at FLI (improving security around sustaining the lines). Training and advice on insect maintenance and handling was provided by Pirbright to LSHTM, Liverpool and Reading. Studies then carried out included investigation of bacteria in Culicoides (University of Liverpool), modeling of mosquito populations (Reading) and development of novel insecticides and repellent formulations (LSHTM). These specialist expertise were driven by the host organizations for the studies. |
| Impact | Products are still in development. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Suresh Kuchipudi and Janet Daly |
| Organisation | Penn State University |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have hosted a co-supervised PhD student twice at The Pirbright Institute. During these visits we have helped with viral infection of primary cells for analysis of PI3K pathway perturbations and generated new GM influenza viruses to help to understand if the difference in PI3K pathway activity observed between two different avian influenza viruses in avian cells was a result of difference in the NS1 protein. In addition we have provided support to the student regarding the future directions of the project and writing up and presentation of the material. Therefore we have provided reagents, practical expertise and intellectual input. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The collaborators have provided access to data generated in their laboratories and intellectual input to the project. |
| Impact | Publication: doi: 10.1038/srep17999 |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Suresh Kuchipudi and Janet Daly |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Department | School of Veterinary Medicine and Science Nottingham |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have hosted a co-supervised PhD student twice at The Pirbright Institute. During these visits we have helped with viral infection of primary cells for analysis of PI3K pathway perturbations and generated new GM influenza viruses to help to understand if the difference in PI3K pathway activity observed between two different avian influenza viruses in avian cells was a result of difference in the NS1 protein. In addition we have provided support to the student regarding the future directions of the project and writing up and presentation of the material. Therefore we have provided reagents, practical expertise and intellectual input. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The collaborators have provided access to data generated in their laboratories and intellectual input to the project. |
| Impact | Publication: doi: 10.1038/srep17999 |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Swine haplotyping |
| Organisation | Gift Of Life |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Prepared and shipped samples |
| Collaborator Contribution | Sample analysis |
| Impact | Data generation. Not multi-disciplinary |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | The GCRF One Health Poultry Hub |
| Organisation | Royal Veterinary College (RVC) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The focus of the research is to achieve sustainable global intensification of poultry meat and egg production whilst reducing risks to human and animal health and welfare. We are undertaking research to investigate the diversity of avian influenza viruses prevalent in poultry and wild birds in south east Asia. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Royal Veterinary College, London is leading this GCRF One Health Poultry Hub. The project will address the need to meet rising demand for poultry meat and eggs in developing countries, while minimising risk to international public health. Population growth is driving global demand for poultry, meat and egg production; this unfortunately creates conditions in which animal diseases can spread to humans ('zoonoses'). These include bacterial food poisoning and strains with avian influenza with epidemic or pandemic potential. The GCRF One Health Poultry Hub will adopt a 'One Health' approach to the issue of combatting animal-to-human diseases by bringing together a team of laboratory, clinical, veterinary and social scientists. This team will test and evaluate novel interventions. The need for safe poultry production is most urgent in South and South East Asia, so the RVC and its partners will then use their local networks in these regions to put its positive research to immediate use. |
| Impact | Development of international interdisciplinary partnership of 55 investigators from 13 countries to address the emerging global challenges of food security and public health associated with intensification of poultry production. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | The Pirbright "Livestock Antibody Hub" funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |
| Organisation | The Pirbright Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Me and my team established collaboration in the "Livestock Antibody Hub" funded ($5.5 million) by the from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Focus of our partnership is to develop techniques and capacity to analyse immune cells (B cells) of cattle, poultry and pigs that produce virus neutralizing antibodies. This research will support rational development of next generation of vaccines and to explore antibody-based passive immunization approaches for treatment and prophylaxis of infectious viral diseases affecting livestock and humans. Our initial focus is to target major animal viral pathogens that cause severe losses within Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC) animal production systems including avian influenza virus (AIV), Newcastle disease virus (NDV), infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) and foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV). |
| Collaborator Contribution | This is a collaborative project and partners are providing help in provision of reagents and techniques for analysis of diversity of B cells repertoire that produce infleunza virus-specific antibodies, single cell sequencing and bioinformatic analysis. This project will further strengthen our on-going research collaborations with many research groups in academia as well as with animal health industry (Zoetis, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health, Merck, CEVA, Jovac, YeBio, ILRI, Galvmed, The Roslin Institute, HuMabs, AbCellera and Distributed Bio) to take the research outputs from laboratory to the field. The outputs of research will be improved vaccines and diagnostics enabling to reduce the impact of infectious diseases on farm animals, which offer substantial direct and indirect economic, public health, environmental and social benefits to the UK and rest of the world. |
| Impact | Development of passive immunization approaches against avian influenza viruses affecting poultry (project incited in January 2020). |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | The Roslin Institute |
| Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
| Department | The Roslin Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have been working with several groups using our molecular and genetic data to help understand cattle cellular immunology. We have also hosted a visiting scientist to provide training in molecular techniques and data analysis, This has continued and now includes members of the Centre for Tropical Livestock Health and Genetics where we are engaged in sample sharing and maximising the value of genetic data by linking different sources as much as possible. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners have provided data and reagents as well as intellectual input to help us translate genetic diversity into functional diversity |
| Impact | This collaboration is multi-disciplinary, although largely immunology and associated genetics is also involves bioinformatics |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | The effect of the microbiota on immunity to swine infleunza |
| Organisation | University of Surrey |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We wish to establish the gut and nasal microbiome in normal healthy pigs and how this is affected by influenza infection. We have collected gut samples from pigs at different stages of infection, as well as nasal swabs which we will provide to our collaborators in Surrey. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our collaborators in Surrey will perform the sequencing and bioinformatics analysis to determine the microbial communities present in the samples. |
| Impact | No outcomes yet - we are in the process of analysing the samples. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Thomas Bowden - STRUBI - University of Oxford - Glycoprotein structure collaboration |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provision of data and advice about the biological properties of viral glycoproteins, e.g. their fusion capacity with various receptors, their role in determining host-range |
| Collaborator Contribution | Advice and technical support at the structural level supporting future project development and design |
| Impact | No outcomes as yet |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Trevor Sweeney - University of Cambridge PhD Studentship |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of PhD studentship project in collaboration with Dr. Sweeney's lab at Cambridge and application at Pirbright. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Development of PhD studentship project and application at Cambridge. |
| Impact | The PhD studentship has been funded and is currently been advertised. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | University of Glasgow collaborations (Sam Wilson and Massimo Palmarini) |
| Organisation | University of Glasgow |
| Department | MRC - University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Scientific discussion and reagent sharing contributing to grant applications and active research projects |
| Collaborator Contribution | Scientific discussion and reagent sharing contributing to grant applications and active research projects |
| Impact | Successful MRC grant application |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | University of Liverpool Proteomics Collaboration |
| Organisation | University of Liverpool |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Generation of samples to analyse the membranous proteome of cells infected with paramyxoviruses. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Proteomic analysis of samples and technical support. Access to previous data-sets and expertise. |
| Impact | Preliminary data sets only to date. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Wilhelm Gerner |
| Organisation | University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna |
| Country | Austria |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our lab hosted Dr Gerner who brought samples for RNA-seq. My lab planned and executed the sequencing and is contributing to the analysis. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr Gerner did all the animal work and cell sorting to produce the samples reading for RNA-seq |
| Impact | None as yet, analysis is ongoing |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Y chromosome-linked X-shredding gene drives |
| Organisation | Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| Country | Israel |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We shared with the partner Y chromosome-linked docking lines generated in our lab. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided some plasmid constructs. |
| Impact | No outputs yet. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Talk Presented at 2nd International Congress of Veterinary Microbiology, 16th -19th October 2018. Sherwood Breezes Resort-Lara, Antalya, Turkey. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Conference discussed improving prevention and control of viral diseases of poultry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | "Challenges for Poultry Industry". Organised by Fakieh Poultry at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2nd -3rd December 2018, |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Conference discussed prevention and control of infectious diseases affecting poultry production. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | "Interactive session with poultry stakeholders". Title: Overview of Avian Influenza group Research at The Pirbright Institute. Presented at University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) Lahore, Pakistan, 3rd August 2018. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The workshop discussed the economic impacts and prevention strategies against avian influenza viruses affecting poultry production and zoonotic infections. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | 1st Research Coordination Meeting (RCM) of the Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on "Generic approach for the development of genetic sexing strains for SIT applications" Vienna, 7-11 October 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | FAO/IAEA Coordinated Research Project on exploring genetic and molecular methods of sex separation in insect pests; aimed at promoting specific areas of research, exchange of ideas and networking among the experts in the field. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | 2. Overview of Avian Influenza group Research at The Pirbright Institute. Presented at "Interactive session with poultry stakeholders" at University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) Lahore, Pakistan, 3rd August 2018. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dissemination of research Project outcomes These include presenting research data for vaccine seed strains with emergent field avian influenza variants; The zoonotic risk posed by emerging avian influenza viruses circulating in the wild birds and poultry. Impact of virus evolution on vaccine efficacy and persistence in poultry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | 360 degree Lab Animal Tour (and film) of The Plowright Building, The Philip Mellor Insectary, and Animal Isolation Facilities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The website provides unique access to the animal research facilities at The Pirbright Institute which support its world-leading scientific research into livestock viral diseases and helps save countless animal and potentially human lives, globally. Produced and filmed by Understanding Animal Research, the Lab Animal Tour was filmed at Pirbright, and at three other research centres, and provides the viewer with an interactive 360 virtual tour of the animal facilities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.labanimaltour.org/pirbright |
| Description | 7th European Veterinary Immunology Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Selected oral presentation: Developing a 'One Health' Nipah virus vaccine to protect animal and public health |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | A talk at a symposium entitled: Using the 3Rs to support good science |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I gave a talk at a Symposium held at The Pirbright Institute entitled: "Using the 3Rs to support good science". The talk was entitled: "A chicken primary B cell culture model to study the pathogenesis and improve the control of immunosuppressive viruses of poultry" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | A talk at the British Poultry Diseases Group meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The Poultry Diseases Group meet quarterly and is comprised of representatives from private veterinary practices, vaccine and pharmaceutical industries, and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). I gave a talk at one of the meetings outlining my research to date and future directions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | AHSV talk on transmission for OIE (Thailand online) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talk on transmission of AHSV to interested parties following outbreak in 2020. Talk given on 9/6/20 to approx 150. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | AN INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR VENUGOPAL NAIR |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Professor Venugopal Nair is a Research Group Leader at The Pirbright Institute, a visiting Professor of Avian Virology at the Department of Zoology, and a Jenner Investigator at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford. He is also a member of the Microbiology Society, and in this interview, he tells us more about his research into viral diseases of livestock. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://microbiologysociety.org/membership/meet-our-members/focus-area-viruses/an-interview-with-pro... |
| Description | Amin Asfor presented the findigs of the project at the Microbiology Society Annual meeting, 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Amin Asfor presented the findigs of the project at the Microbiology Society Annual meeting, 2019. Title: in vivo and ex vivo models of Infectious Bursal Disease Virus (IBDV) in inbred chicken lines differing in their resistance to the disease. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Amin Asfor presented the work at the NC3Rs Fellows Day |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Amin Asfor presented a poster at the NC3Rs Fellows Day entitled: Chicken primary B cell culture model to study the pathogenesis and improve the control of immunosuppressive viruses of poultry |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Amy Lewis, The Scientist, 15/08/2017 re gene drive and Predator Free NZ 2050 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Provided information and quotes for article on potential use of gene drives as part of New Zealand effort to eradicate invasive predators |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/50180/title/Driving-Down-Pests/ |
| Description | Ash Manor GCSE Mentoring 2018 - BA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Stimulating increased interest in research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Ash Manor school challenge week science workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Provide information on research activity at The Pirbright Institute and informing on pathogens infecting farmed animals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Ash Manor school challenge week science workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Discussion of research activities with school children and the school reported increased interests in the related subject. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Avian Influenza H9N2 and H7N9 evolution, fitness in poultry and zoonotic potential presented by Munir Iqbal at UC DAVIS EDUCATION CONFERENCE ON ONE HEALTH FOR FOOD SAFETY, AGRICULTURE, AND ANIMAL HEALTH |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The research was discussed with academic and non-academic participants the risks of avian influenza viruses currently circulating in poultry and carry potential to cause zoonotic infections. Since avian influenzas viruses (AIVs) exist in many subtypes and co-infection of two or more different AIV subtypes in an individual bird can lead to the generation of novel reassortant viruses. The emergent reassortant viruses may carry differential phenotypic characteristics (virulence, host-transmission and host-range) compared to their parental viruses. Our studies revealed that experimental co-infection of chickens with two different subtypes of avian influenza viruses (H9N2 and H7N9) led to the emergence of novel reassortant H9N9 viruses which carry greater virulence for poultry and an increased zoonotic and pandemic potential. Our results also provided evidence that both H9N2 and H7N9 viruses can rapidly acquire antigenic changes in vaccinated birds causing vaccine failure and cocirculation of these viruses can also rapidly lead to rapid generation of novel reassortment viruses with increased virulence and host-range posing threat to both animals and humans. This presentation increased awareness among the audience risk posed by co-circulation of different subtypes of avian influenza viruses in poultry and wild birds and how best we can detect emerging threats and develop the disease risks and disease mitigation strategies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.wifss.ucdavis.edu/onehealthsummer21/ |
| Description | Avian influenza virus evolution impacts on virulence and antigenicity |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | A talk was presented at Royal Veterinary College, London, by Thusitha Karunarathna (a PhD student in the Avian Influenza group at The Pirbright Institute). The Talk described the mechanisms used by the avian influenza viruses to evade host immunity to cause disease outbreaks and persists in poultry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Avian influenza viruses can combine two techniques to evade vaccine immunity |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | A study by researchers at The Pirbright Institute reveals more clues about how avian influenza viruses can evade vaccine immunity, aiding their spread in the field. The findings are published in Emerging Microbes and Infections. Influenza viruses are able to mutate, which can enable them to evade immunity generated by natural infection or vaccination. Influenza viruses have four main ways of duping the immune system so that they can continue to infect and spread between birds. Pirbright scientists investigated two of these to further understand how the H9N2 avian influenza virus can change its genetic makeup to overcome poultry vaccines. One of the methods the virus can use is to alter one of its surface proteins, haemagglutinin (HA), which enables the virus to enter the cell and replicate. HA is also a common target for the immune system's antibodies, which block the virus from binding to cell receptors. By changing just one or two protein components, HA can latch on far more tightly to the cell, preventing antibodies from stopping the virus. However, this can come at a cost, as particularly strong binding can prevent effective replication. The other method scientists investigated is how H9N2 viruses disguise themselves by adding sugar chains to the surface of their HA proteins. This can block antibodies from binding, but also has varying fitness outcomes for the influenza virus. The researchers found that the location of the sugar chain on HA could determine how effectively the virus replicated. They also demonstrated that the two evasive techniques could either compliment or act against each other - if an influenza virus had gained mutations that enable it to bind more strongly to cells, a sugar chain in the right position could restore its ability to replicate effectively. In contrast, weakly binding influenza viruses do not benefit from HA sugar additions, which instead reduce the virus's ability to replicate. Professor Munir Iqbal, head of the Avian Influenza Group at Pirbright said, "We can use this knowledge to develop new vaccines that will help antibodies to recognise how the flu virus can change. This will provide protection to birds even as the virus evolves. We can also use this information to understand how viruses survive in poultry despite vaccination and monitor new adaptions that may appear in the field." This research was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the British Council with support from the Newton Fund. Article: Sealy, J. E., Peacock, T. P., Sadeyen, J. R., Chang, P., Everest, H. J., Bhat, S., Iqbal, M. (2020). Adsorptive mutation and N-linked glycosylation modulate influenza virus antigenicity and fitness. Emerging Microbes & Infections, advance online publication, 12 November 2020, doi: 10.1080/22221751.2020.1850180 [SOURCE: The Pirbright Institute] |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.star-idaz.net/2020/12/avian-influenza-viruses-can-combine-two-techniques-to-evade-vaccin... |
| Description | Avian influenza viruses in Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka: investigating genotype to phenotype (antigenicity, virulence, host-range). Webinar on 28th March 2021. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presented talk by Munir iqbal describing ongoing research outcomes. We identified genetic determined that modules avian influenza H5 and H9 antigenicity virulence and transmission fitness in different host species. The role of identified markers that change the virus binding to host cells and impact on virus-host interaction leading to mild or severe disease manifestation in chickens and mammalian species (humans). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Avian influenza: tackling large numbers of outbreaks this winter in the UK |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Nearly two years on, the COVID-19 pandemic is still dominating the news and continues to cause concern for populations across the globe. However, UK poultry and wild bird populations are currently facing their own health threat. We are not the only ones that have faced lockdowns because of spreading viruses, UK poultry and captive birds have also faced a similar situation to protect them from avian influenza. Scientists at The Pirbright Institute are working to increase understanding of how genetic changes in influenza A viruses can impact disease spread, host responses to infection and the pathology associated with the disease. What is the avian influenza virus? Avian influenza viruses are Influenza A viruses that circulate and transmit amongst birds. The disease is what we commonly know as 'bird flu'. Influenza A viruses can infect a range of hosts, including humans and two subtypes H1N1 and H3N2 circulate as seasonal flu each winter in the UK. Avian influenza viruses are different to those that can infect humans in that they cannot easily infect humans and must change and adapt to do so. Aquatic birds are a natural reservoir for avian influenza viruses, these birds typically experience fewer clinical symptoms but can spread disease to domestic birds, particularly in the migratory season, between October and March. Avian influenza viruses are categorised as either highly pathogenic (HPAI) or low pathogenic (LPAI) and this categorisation is linked to the severity of disease in chickens. HPAI has a high mortality rate which can be up to 100%, other symptoms can include swelling of the head, death of cells in the comb and wattle, red discolouration of legs and feet and diarrhoea. HPAI causes disease in more organs than just those in the respiratory or gastrointestinal tracts like LPAI, which mostly presents as respiratory symptoms such as a snick (like a sneeze), a rattle in the chest (known as rales) and discharge from the eyes and nose. What is causing bird flu outbreaks in domestic birds now? We are currently in the normal migratory season of wild birds. In the spring and summer months, these birds spend their time breeding and raising their young in North-eastern Asia where they mix with other bird species which enables virus transmission and mutation. Then, when they migrate for the autumn and winter months, they shed virus in their faeces along the way. One of the migratory paths is across Northern Europe and this includes the UK. This year, in the UK, the first avian influenza outbreak was on 15 October and was discovered in captive aquatic birds. To date (17 December 2021) there have been 50 outbreaks in England, 1 in Wales and 2 in Scotland, this has resulted in over half a million birds being destroyed to control the spread of disease. Are there more outbreaks this year compared to other years? The number of outbreaks this year has been the most extensive ever. There have been over 50 outbreaks in the UK, compared to 26 outbreaks last year. Although it is hard to pin down the reason for this high number, we know it is not linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK's response to the spread of avian influenza has been rapid, and from 29 November birds were required to be housed inside with additional biosecurity measures put in place such as foot dips and disinfecting clothing. Testing and surveillance of wild birds have shown that there is a high prevalence of the virus in these birds currently, and this is contributing to the spread of disease to farm and domestic bird populations. A more detailed look at the genetic make-up of these viruses shows that they are different to those from previous years. This is predicted to be as a result of the virus infecting multiple birds across a range of species, and this provides the perfect opportunity for the virus to evolve. Analysis of these genetic changes does not raise any alarm bells for increased transmission to humans, but they are likely impacting the spread and severity of disease in birds. What should we do if we find a dead bird or are concerned about bird health? If the public finds dead waterfowl birds they are encouraged not to touch them but to report them to Defra using the appropriate phone number that can be found on the website, also any other wild birds found dead in numbers of five or greater should be reported. What is Pirbright doing to tackle this virus? Researchers at Pirbright are attempting to enhance the control and detection of avian influenza in poultry populations as well as extend our basic knowledge about the virus in avian and mammalian hosts. The research groups led by Professor Munir Iqbal and Dr Holy Shelton are investigating how avian influenza virus strains originated from wild birds can rapidly adapt to cause disease outbreaks in poultry and gain the potential to infect humans. In addition, Professor Munir Iqbal is developing improved poultry vaccines that prevent virus replication and spread. These vaccines are particularly useful in countries where avian influenza is regularly found in the domestic poultry and the control and prevention of spread isn't easy, such as in the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.pirbright.ac.uk/news/2021/12/avian-influenza-tackling-large-numbers-outbreaks-winter-uk |
| Description | BBC Today programme 24/01/2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Interview on BBC Today programme regarding potential development and use of gene drives in mice |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00025bt |
| Description | BBSRC COP Climate Change Bites 21/05/2021 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | BBSRC-sponsored event "Climate Change Bites" - talks and panel discussion about the effects of climate change on vector-borne disease |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://bbsrc.ukri.org/news/events/2021/climate-change-events/ |
| Description | BBSRC Partnering Seminar, University of Liverpool, Tamilnadu Veterinary and Animal Science University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talk presented entitled " Molecular determinants of antigenicity of H7 and H9 avian Influenza viruses". The research data shared with the colleagues working to reduce the impact of avian infectious diseases on poultry production. The discussion led to more collaboration and work together, acquiring reagents and protocols for further research and development activities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | BBSRC website article: Halloween |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Article on BBSRC website: Halloween Creepy Crawlies |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/news/fundamental-bioscience/2017/171031-f-uk-creepiest-creepy-crawlies/ |
| Description | BIotech YES 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Gave a talk at the BBSRC Biotechnology Young Entrepreneurs' Scheme event at Syngenta (Jealott's Hill) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | BSI report on the future of veterinary immunology and vaccinology |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Organised and published a joint IVVN/BSI report to raise awareness of the UK's research status in veterinary vaccinology and immunology and the importance of maintaining this for the R&D landscape 'Securing Our Future: the value of veterinary vaccines'. This was aimed at influencing policymakers to support and commit to maintaining the UK's leading position. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | BSI webinar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I presented a webinar hosted by the British Society for Immunology entitled "BSI Coronavirus webinar: What can we learn from the animal coronaviruses?", which sparked questions and discussions afterwards. I have since been contacted to establish new collaborations with people in the audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Big Band Science Event- AH, ER, LVC, MdP |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Stimulating increased interest in science and research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Big Bang Fair |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This is a South of England Showground in which students from schools and their parents participated which lead to discussion and interest in both school children and their parents. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://nearme.thebigbangfair.co.uk/view/?eve_id=1956 |
| Description | Big Bang Fair |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The Big Bang Near Me is a programme of regional and local Big Bang Fairs that take place all across the UK. Together with The Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair and The Big Bang Competition, it forms part of the wider Big Bang programme, bringing science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) to life for young people |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://nearme.thebigbangfair.co.uk/about/ |
| Description | Big Bang Fair South East - RC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Regional science festival/event - changes in public attitudes and stimulating increased interest in research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Big Bang UK- Jennifer Simpson |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Big Bang UK is a science competition. JS acted as moderator for final projects submitted by students from across the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | Pre-2006,2019 |
| Description | Biotech YES, Syngenta Jealott's Hill, 05 Oct 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Teams of postgraduate students from a number of universities and institutes attended talk as part of Biotech YES (Young Entrepreneurs' Scheme). Follow-up discussion influenced several aspects of their approach to entrepreneurship both within the competition and more generally |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014,2015,2016,2017 |
| Description | Bird flu study from Pirbright Institute sheds light on mutations and health impacts |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Bird flu study from Pirbright Institute sheds light on mutations and health impacts. Emerging research from the Pirbright Institute shows that avian influenza mutations could increase disease threat to poultry, but make it less infectious for humans. Mutations in the H7N9 bird flu virus increase its replication rate and stability in avian cells, but reduce its preference for infecting human cells, a study from The Pirbright Institute has found. The results show that outbreaks in birds caused by strains with these mutations could pose a lower risk to human health, while remaining a significant threat to the poultry industry. H7N9 low-pathogenicity avian influenza (LPAI) virus usually infects birds, but in 2013 the first human case was recorded in China. Since then, there have been over 1,500 confirmed human infections with about 40 percent of cases resulting in fatalities. Further evolution of the H7N9 virus gave rise to a high-pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) strain that could cause 100 percent mortality in chickens. In 2017 the Chinese Government initiated a wide scale vaccination programme in chickens which drove down cases of both low and high pathogenicity strains. Previous Pirbright research identified three mutations in avian influenza H7N9 viruses that enabled them to overcome immunity generated by vaccines. The mutations altered a protein on the outside of the virus called haemagglutinin (HA), which binds to host cell receptors and allows the virus to enter and cause infection. In the latest study, published in the Journal of Virology, the team discovered the same mutations occurred in H7N9 viruses isolated from the field in 2019, which most likely emerged in birds that had either been immunised or naturally infected. Analysis of the viruses demonstrated that strains with these mutations have significantly increased replication rates in both chicken cell cultures and chick embryos as well as displaying greater acid and thermal stability, which could improve transmission ability. The mutations also influenced which animal cells the strain could enter - their HA proteins could still bind to the receptors of bird cells, but they lost their affinity for human cell receptors. These findings show that in evolving to escape the chicken immune system, the mutated H7N9 viruses have reduced their risk to human health whilst increasing the threat they pose to poultry, although further studies in birds are needed to confirm the impact this could have on infection and disease spread. Professor Munir Iqbal, head of the Avian Influenza Group at Pirbright, said: "Our approach has allowed us to accurately predict avian influenza mutations that appear in the field, and assess how these mutations could affect the risk they pose to both human and avian populations. This information can be used to inform surveillance efforts and provide early warnings of potentially dangerous emerging strains." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.thepoultrysite.com/news/2020/07/bird-flu-study-from-pirbright-institute-sheds-light-on-m... |
| Description | Blenheim High School Fair - DB |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Team members attended sessions at a local high school with secondary school children and those in the 6th form to talk about paths into scientific careers, sharing their experiences of working at The Pirbright Institute. Approximately 300 students attended and it stimulated increased interest in science and research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Bluetongue and Wildlife (15 minute presentation on Epizootic Haemorhagic Disease Virus), (July/Pirbright, UK) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Policymakers reported greater interest in deer-associated diseases including EHDV and BTV |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Briefing - EU/Estonia parliamentarians and policy advisers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Briefed Estonian delegation to Brussels/EU parliament on gene drives and related issues |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Brownies-AH |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Talking to the Brownies about science and their careers |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | CABI_Research activity of Avian Immunology Group at The Pirbright Institute |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Release of research activity within Avian Immunology group at The Pirbright Institute |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | CBD Open-ended online forum on synbio 06-10/2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | UN Convention on Biodiversity. Policy- discussion on synthetic biology: nominated participant in the Open Ended Online Forum on Synthetic biology as established in decision XII/24 of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP) and extended in COP decision XIII/17 which ran from June to Oct 2017 (approx.) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://bch.cbd.int/synbio/open-ended/discussion/ |
| Description | CBS briefing 26/05/2021 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Briefed CBS journalist in relation to story about release of transgenic mosquitoes in Florida |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | CNN interview |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Interview with CNN journalist. Journalist later followed up asking me to check and clarify some issues. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Cafe Scientifique, Bradfield School, West Berkshire: "How insects spread viruses" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Cafe Scientifique is a public forum for exploring the latest ideas in science and technology. Meetings take place in cafes, bars, restaurants and even theatres, but always outside a traditional academic context. I presented to an audience of the general public and answered questions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Cafe Scientifique, Reading: "How insects spread viruses" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Cafe Scientifique is a public forum for exploring the latest ideas in science and technology. Meetings take place in cafes, bars, restaurants and even theatres, but always outside a traditional academic context. I presented to an audience of the general public and answered questions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2007,2017 |
| Description | Camberley Library Fun Palace 2018 - JM |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Changes in public attitudes and stimulating increased interest in research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Caroline Seydel Genetic Literacy Project re GM mosquitoes/gene drive/Zika |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Provided background material and quotes for article on GM mosquitoes and control of Zika virus. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/01/29/waging-war-mosquito-split-gene-drive-hinder-spread-zik... |
| Description | Centre of excellence for research on avian diseases (CERAD) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to present my work at the UK-China Centre of excellence for research on avian diseases (CERAD) meeting attended by researchers from UK, China and Thailand. There was lots of discussion about the research and future directions, including potential collaborations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Chair and Co-Organiser for UK Vector-borne Diseases Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | UK Vector-borne Diseases meeting held bi-Annually. Half day sessions on 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd November 2020. Chaired session on 9th November 2020. Meeting was held online with invited and selected presentations and a poster session. Also included funders from Defra and BBSRC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Institute stand at the festival covering the Institute science in general, and transmission and gene editing to control disease, in particular. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Stimulating increased interest in science and research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science Festival 2018 - JA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Major science festival - changes in public attitudes and stimulating increased interest in research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science Festival 2018 - JM |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Major science festival - changes in public attitudes and stimulating increased interest in research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science Festival 2018 - JP |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Major national science festival - changes in public attitudes and stimulating increased interest in research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science Festival 2018 - RC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Major science festival - changes in public attitudes and stimulating increased interest in research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science Festival 2018 - SV |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Display at major science festival: changes in public attitudes and stimulating increased interest in research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science Festival 2018-DP |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Major national science festival - changes in public attitudes and stimulating increased interest in research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science Festival- AH, ER, JC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Present at the Pirbright stand to discuss science with the public |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Cheltenham Science festival - LB |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | National science festival which Team members attended to demonstrate to the public how scientists at The Pirbright Institute can work to contain and control viral outbreaks. Over 500 people accessed the information and this stimulated increased interest in science and research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Cheltenhan Science Festival - Dana Perry |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | DP helped to run a stand at the festival, questions from the general public stimulated increased interest in science and research and increased the visibility of The Pirbright Institute. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Combating avian influenza through systematic analysis of antigenic drift, genetic variation, and development of novel diagnostic tools and vaccines. Presented at as PI of the ZELS project at ZELS grant holders and Stakeholders meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam 23th-24th January 2017. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Engagement and dissemination of research outcome to representatives of research funding bodies such as Department for International Development (DFID), Medical Research Council (MRC) and the researchers working on different research projects funded by BBSRC under Zoonoses and Emerging Livestock Systems (ZELS). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Commentary on AHSV outbreak in Thailand in Science Magazine |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | 'Thailand scrambles to contain major outbreak of horse-killing virus' - Article in Science Mag April 2020 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/thailand-scrambles-contain-major-outbreak-horse-killing-viru... |
| Description | Conference session organiser at MMC2017 - Host Pathogen Interactions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Chair for the Imaging Host-Pathogen Interactions session run at MMC2017 (and in previous years). Session usually attracts approx. 30 delegates from national/international backgrounds, mostly academic. Talks sparked discussions and networking opportunities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012,2014,2015,2017 |
| Description | Coronavirus lecture MSc students (Surrey) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | A lecture was presented on the replication, cellular interactions and pathogenesis of coronaviruses to 15-20 MSc students from University of Surrey. The students were engaged and interested, answering and asking questions during the session. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2018 |
| Description | DARPA visit April 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Supporters |
| Results and Impact | Hosted visit by US funding agency programme manager to The Pirbright Institute |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | DB Winston Churchill School Careers event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | School careers event for a Secondary School - 1500 children ages 11 to 16 years |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Deimante Lukosaityte: Microbiology Society conference 2019. Poster presentation: Chicken protection against H9N2 virus by passive immunization |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Described techniques for development of next generation of vaccines against viral diseases affecting animals and humans. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Demonstrating Mathematics (Angita Shrestha) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Angita Shrestha (PhD student within Avian Influenza group) provided help in a Maths session to the new Oxford Doctoral Training Porgramme (DTP) cohort. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Determinants of antigenicity of H9 Avian Influenza Viruses. UK-China Swine and Poultry Workshop.17-18 June 2019, The Pirbright Institute, UK. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The talk and the discussion on the improvement of disease control systems (vaccines and diagnostics) to prevent avian influenza viruses infection in poultry and zoonotic infections in humans. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Diamond (TT) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Diamond Light Source Open Day - explaining to general public the importance of structural biology and microscopy for understanding viruses and designing improved vaccines. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Diamond Light Source Open day - HJM |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A public open day for Diamond Light Source, which Pirbright attended as a user of the facility to showcase research being performed at Pirbgith in collaboration with Diamond. There was a lot of interest in the fundamental research and sicussion about future plans and how it fit with the facility at Diamond. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Diamond open day |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Over 300 people visited our stand at the open day, in which we described the importance of our work for food security and public health. Children from all ages were involved and learned about viruses and played with the huge virus particle that we had produced. One of the major impact was that we described to several people why we work on some viruses that we do not have them in the UK, and the importance of the work for the UK and UK economy and public health was explained. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.diamond.ac.uk/Public/VisitUs.html |
| Description | Diego Friere Pesquisa Fapesp |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Interview with journalist leading to article regarding release of transgenic mosquitoes into the environment to control dengue and other diseases |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/2020/02/05/jacobina-controversy/ |
| Description | Discuss gene drives with NZ Parliamentary Commissioner |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Met NZ Parliamentary Commissioner to provide background information on, and discuss, gene drive systems. New Zealand is considering genetic and other control methods for invasive pests. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | EFSA Hearing Expert Gene Drive Environmental Risk Assessment Working Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Hearing Expert for EFSA Gene Drive Environmental Risk Assessment Working Group. Contributed to EFSA Scientific Opinion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.2903/j.efsa.2020.6297 |
| Description | EFSA consultation July 2020 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Responded to European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) request for input regarding regulation of gene drives (public consultation) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2903/sp.efsa.2020.EN-1939 |
| Description | EM-UK |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Co-organiser and speaker for UKRI supported network for electron microscopists in the UK. I was one (or two) of the founder members. Meeting has been running for 5 years. Increased the visibility of The Pirbright Institute. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | EM-UK: A national network for electron microscopists |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Founder and Chair of EM-UK, a national network (with international participants) for electron microscopists. Includes a one or two day meeting with invited speakers, and email discussion list for questions, comments, advertising courses, advertising jobs. It has proved very popular with over 200 people registering for the discussion list, and 90+ delegates at each meeting. Administration is handled by the Royal Microscopical Society. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017,2018 |
| Description | EMBO Workshop: Molecular and population biology of mosquitoes and other disease vectors: vector and disease control |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on "Sex determination pathway in Anopheles gambiae as a target for mosquito control" given during the meeting held on 22 - 26 July 2019 in Kolymbari, Greece. Following a presentation a request was made to give an informal seminar at the Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College, London. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://meetings.embo.org/event/19-mosquitoes |
| Description | EPO Inventors Revisited video |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Podcast for European Patent Office "Inventors Revisited" series |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.epo.org/news-events/events/european-inventor/inventors-revisited.html |
| Description | EPO TalkInnovation Facebook live event and podcast |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | EPO TalkInnovation Facebook live event and podcast discussing use of genetic methods to control mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.facebook.com/europeanpatentoffice/videos/a-minute-change-that-makes-a-massive-difference... |
| Description | EU parliament webinar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Invited speaker for European Parliament Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development webinar "Research and Innovation for biodiversity: what role for gene drive research?" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://ebcd.org/event/online-event-research-and-innovation-for-biodiversity-what-role-for-gene-driv... |
| Description | Edinburgh Science Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Talk and panel event at Edinburgh Science Festival "The Buzz about GM Insects". Sparked questions and discussions afterwards including some career questions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Edinburgh seminar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Gave invited seminar at Edinburgh University (via Zoom) regarding development and applications of transgenic mosquitoes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Elle Campbell Presented her data at the 2019 Microbiology Society Annual Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Elle Campbell gave an oral presentation at the 2019 Microbiology Society Annual Meeting on the work we were doing with fluorescently tagged IBDVs and virus factory movement. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Encouraging women into science and engineering STEM. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | MH Visited Warwick School, Redhill to talk to secondary students about careers in STEM. A very positive outcome and well received. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Engineered Recombinant Single Chain Variable Fragment of Monoclonal Antibody Provides Protection to Chickens Infected with H9N2 Avian Influenza. Presented by Deimante Lukosaityte at Influenza Update meeting 4th - 15th December 2020: The University of Liverpool (online meeting) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The talk describes a technique for the development of immunotherapy to protect poultry from Infectious diseases such as avian influenza viruses. The talk provided evidence that recombinant antibodies can provide passive immunity to protect chickens from avian influenza. Several mAbs generated from mice hybridomas targeting hemagglutinin (HA) of H9N2 virus were converted into single-chain variable fragment (scFv) antibodies. Recombinant scFvs were purified from insect cell culture supernatants and showed it could retain neutralization capacity against H9N2 virus in vitro. To test therapeutic scFv efficacy in vivo we selected two of the recombinantly produced scFv antibodies for prophylaxis and treatment of chickens infected with H9N2 UDL-01 virus. Intranasally treated birds showed reduced disease manifestation and virus shedding. These results indicate that antibody therapy could be beneficial for the provision of rapid treatment for reducing disease impacts in poultry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/cvr/events/influenza/ |
| Description | European Society Vector Ecology (Invited Chair for two sessions and speaker for 15min talk); (October/Palermo, Sicily) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Chaired two sessions, one on vector-borne diseases, one on scientific networks. Latter included a discussion with early career researchers. Main outcome was coordination between active networks including The Gnatwork. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.sove.org/European%20SOVE%20folder/greecescientificprogram/palermo_Scientific_program_revi... |
| Description | Evolution of H9N2 avian influenza virus under immune pressure. Presented at 10th International Symposium on Avian Influenza, 15th - 18th April 2018, The Grand Hotel, Brighton, UK. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The primary aim of the workshop was to forge long-term research partnerships between early-career researchers, livestock industry and national disease control authorities in the UK and the Philippines. In addition, the activity hopes provide information about the emerging and next generation diagnostic and vaccine strategies and their utilization to reduce the impact of viral diseases on livestock and poultry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.slideshare.net/zerep_cire/2019-newton-agham-researcher-links-workshop-vaccines-and-diagn... |
| Description | Ewen Callaway Nature 08/01/2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Provided expert background information for article in Nature regarding engineering species barriers, described by journalist as "very helpful" in followup email. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Expert commentary on New Scientist article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I provided expert commentary on an article published in New Scientist, which summarised research performed by researchers at the University of Leeds on how mosquito bites enhance the transmission of vector-borne diseases. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://institutions.newscientist.com/article/2231141-skin-cream-applied-to-mosquito-bites-stops-vir... |
| Description | FAO/IAEA Coordinated Research Programme on methods of sex separation in mosquitoes; Research coordination meeting Bangkok 19-23 February 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | FAO/IAEA Coordinated Research Programme on exploring genetic, molecular, mechanical, and behavioral methods of sex separation in mosquitoes; aimed at promoting specific areas of research, exchange of ideas and networking among the experts in the field. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013,2015,2016,2018 |
| Description | FLI - presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official | |