East Coast Fever Vaccine Development project- Action
East Coast fever (ECF) is a major tick-borne livestock disease in eastern, central and southern Africa that kills over 1 million animals each year.It is caused by a unicellular parasite called Theileria parva. This loss is particularly hard on pastoral people and farmers with small numbers of cattle since much of the family’s wealth and food security resides in these animals. An International consortium via the FtF project was established and includes USDA-ARS-ADRU, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya; Antwerp, Flanders; Roslin Institute, Edinburgh; Royal Veterinary College, University of London; GALVmed; Washington State University, Pullman WA, and The institute for Genome Sciences, Maryland. Recent activities include:
The international consortium submitted a full proposal to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with expectation of funding notice by 1 July, 2013. This funding requests greatly enhances and leverages ftf funds toward successful vaccine development and furthers global food security.
Dr. Lindsay Fry, veterinarian has completed preparation of her PhD proposal with Wendy Brown (WSU) and Don Knowles (ADRU) concerning the role of cattle white blood cells (lymphocytes) in stimulating long term immunity against T. parva infection. Lindsay will defend her proposal in June of 2013.
Lindsay Fry (WSU-ADRU), Wendy Brown (WSU) and Glen Scoles (ADRU) traveled to the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh and met with Ivan Morrison and colleagues to continue our collaborative studies concerning the role of cattle lymphocytes in protection against and vaccine development for East Coast Fever.