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Impact: Economic, public policy and animal health and welfare: Selective breeding based upon identification of PRNP genotypes can eliminate animals that are susceptible to scrapie from the flock.
Significance: UK sheep meat exports are worth >£380million. Breeding for scrapie resistance protected the sheep industry from similar damage to that inflicted by BSE on cattle and the UK economy.
Beneficiaries: Farmers, animals, consumers
Attribution: Professor Hunter and Dr. Goldmann (Roslin Institute, now part of UoE) identified polymorphisms of the PrP (PRNP) gene linked to scrapie susceptibility and resistance in sheep.
Reach: International, programmes breeding for resistance to scrapie in sheep are now used in the UK, Europe and USA.
Recent outbreaks across Europe of Bluetongue, a viral disease particularly affecting sheep, have driven research at LSHTM by Professor Polly Roy and her team, resulting in the Bluetongue virus (BTV) becoming one of the best understood viruses at the structural and molecular levels. The research has ultimately enabled the creation of several promising new vaccines. In addition the Roy group has contributed towards exploiting virus-like particles (VLPs) as a method to produce safe vaccines against human and animal viral pathogen. The most advanced example is a BTV vaccine for livestock, which is manufactured by Boehringer Ingelheim (BI).
Impact: Health and welfare; policy in the form of national and international guidelines; diagnostic service; engagement with patient groups.
Significance: UoE-formulated diagnostic criteria adopted by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), enable reliable case ascertainment and longitudinal study of disease trends. The UoE Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease Unit acts as an international reference centre for diagnosis. Case ascertainment has improved.
Beneficiaries: Patients with prion disease and their families, policy-makers, the NHS, charities.
Attribution: The UoE CJD Unit led the work with international collaborators.
Reach: Worldwide; diagnostic criteria are WHO-endorsed and have been adopted worldwide. Pooling of data across Europe has enabled assessment of 11,000 cases of sporadic CJD.
Interdisciplinary research at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) has provided core evidence on which global efforts are based in order to eradicate one of the most economically damaging diseases of the cattle industry. The research findings have helped steer national programmes to eradicate Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) across Europe, South Asia and Australasia, reducing economic losses. Professor Joe Brownlie has additionally led pilot programmes in the UK, providing data for a national scheme, campaigned widely to highlight the issue and secured farming industry awareness and support through media exposure.
Research by a team at Southampton into amyloid beta protein (A03b2) immunisation to treat Alzheimer's disease has been key to changing the way the global medical community understands and reacts to the disease. The first to observe that A03b2 immunisation clears A03b2 plaques, the team's studies were pivotal in initiating and informing the safe clinical trial development of 40 immunotherapy agents; investments of $3bn by the pharmaceutical industry; and 30 phase II and phase III studies. The research shaped US government policy on new safety measures for clinical trials and played a leading role in the doubling of UK funding to tackle Alzheimer's.
Research led by Dr Watson has demonstrated that chronic pancreatitis (CP) is more common and clinically significant in dogs than veterinary surgeons previously recognised, with strong breed predispositions. Prior to this work, the veterinary profession believed that dogs had a single attack of acute pancreatitis which did not result in the development of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) and/or endocrine insufficiency (diabetes mellitus (DM)). The work by Watson has shown the importance of chronic disease and has altered the long term treatment of affected dogs across the profession. It has also prompted companies in the UK, Europe and the USA to increase their focus on low-fat dietary management, pancreatic enzyme supplementation and analgesia improving the quality of life of affected dogs.
Impact: Economic, animal health and welfare: Genetic markers have enabled selection of salmon lines with improved virus resistance
Significance: UK salmon industry benefit estimated at ~£26 million/annum GVA following identification of a genetic trait conferring resistance to an economically devastating viral disease.
Beneficiaries: Salmon farming industry, consumers
Attribution: Work performed by Houston, Bishop, Woolliams and Haley (Roslin Institute, now part of UoE).
Reach: Aquaculture industry internationally, i.e. Europe and South America (Chile).
Research at LSHTM has been central to the introduction of the Hib vaccine in developing countries. School staff were involved in the 1990s Gambia Hib vaccine trial, which demonstrated the impact of Hib vaccine on pneumonia. Through their work on the subsequent Hib Initiative, their research was instrumental in speeding up evidence-based decision-making for Hib vaccine introduction in a number of countries, mainly in Asia and Africa. The project has been an outstanding success, with Hib vaccine now introduced into 71 of the 73 countries eligible for GAVI Alliance support.
Bristol University's School of Veterinary Sciences, a global leader in feline medicine, was the first UK centre to develop and commercially offer polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and quantitative (q) PCR assays to detect a range of feline infectious and genetic diseases. Since 2008 there has been a dramatic increase in the number of qPCR tests performed, with over 35,000 tests carried out between 2008 and 2013. The results of genetic testing have informed breeding programmes and resulted in a reduced prevalence of genetic disorders such as polycystic kidney disease (PKD). The results of testing for infectious diseases have informed diagnosis and treatment modalities and, together with the genetic testing, have contributed to significant improvements in feline health and welfare. This work has also generated commercial income in excess of £1.7M, which has been used to further research into feline infectious and genetic diseases.
Impact: Economic / animal health and welfare / environment: Improved profitability and sustainability of the UK dairy industry.
Significance: The use of the Profitable Lifetime Index (£PLI) increased the profitability of the dairy sector by an estimated £634M in 2008-2013 and reduced the greenhouse gas emissions from the sector by an estimated 8.4%.
Beneficiaries: Dairy producers, breeding companies, general public/environment, dairy cattle welfare and health.
Attribution: Drs Wall, Mrode (SRUC), and Brotherstone (UoE), Profs. Coffey, Simm, Stott, Veerkamp, Oldham (SRUC), and Woolliams (UoE/Roslin)
Reach: UK dairy industry. Tools developed, such as the routine recording of body condition score, and using these data in national genetic evaluations, have been widely adopted internationally, including in major dairy genetics exporting countries such as the USA, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand.