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Novel bioluminescent bacterial biosensors developed at UWE, Bristol, and commercialised by Randox, have been used by a range of companies to demonstrate effectiveness of drugs and decontamination procedures. This has improved development processes at companies including Clavis Pharma, Purest Solutions and Dycem, leading to new manufacturing processes and quality control test methods. The biosensors are used in novel applications to give pharmacodynamic data on effectiveness of drugs and real time in-situ demonstration of effectiveness of decontamination processes. These biosensors, pioneered and developed by Vyv Salisbury's group, have been commercially adopted and used for evaluation by at least six collaborating companies.
Research led by Dr Holmes has identified a novel variant of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in livestock. This represents a previously unidentified reservoir of infection which has had impact on the epidemiology of MRSA and its management. This research also impacts on antibiotic use in agriculture and its role in the emergence of antibiotic resistance. As a consequence of these research findings commercial tests and testing protocols have been developed to detect the new MRSA variant, which are now used widely in clinical settings throughout Europe. The discovery has also been used to inform policy decisions at a governmental level in the USA and Europe.
Researchers in the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology have developed a new methodology to analyse pathogen evolution. This `antigenic cartography' has led to the group becoming integrally involved in the World Health Organisation (WHO) influenza vaccine strain selection process, and has directly contributed to more accurate and appropriate flu vaccine design, with associated international impacts on disease prevention and public health (the flu vaccine is given to ~350 million people annually). The research has directly affected how public health professionals conduct disease surveillance and sampling.
Professor William Stimson has led research into rapid diagnostic tests for the food industry from 1996 to the present day. These tests reduce the time for microbiological testing of food pathogens from 2-5 days to within a working day. The new technology is fully automated, uses less material and involves fewer manipulations than previously available kits, leading to a reduction in cost and time. A spin out company, Solus Scientific Solutions Ltd., has attracted €1.36M EUROSTARS funding for further Research & Development, and has created 24 jobs. Sales of testing kits produced revenue of £3.4 million by year end 2012, and have increased since this date.
Since its discovery in the 1980s, avian metapneumovirus (AMPV) has spread in poultry populations worldwide with major adverse health and food security implications for commercial chickens and turkeys. Research at the University of Liverpool (UoL) led to the registration of a live vaccine in 1994 which has played a global role in AMPV control, thereby safeguarding the supply of poultry meat and eggs. Recent research and development at the UoL has identified key control measures, relating to vaccine application, vaccine selection, efficacy and safety, which have had a significant impact on poultry health and consequently, poultry producers and consumers. In particular, demonstration that live AMPV vaccines can revert to virulence, that vaccine type applied influences field protection and that continuous use of a single vaccine can influence circulating field strains, has resulted in UoL leading policy making with regard to current AMPV vaccine protocols.
UCL investigators have been at the forefront of characterising and assessing HIV drug resistance since 1990, soon after the very first HIV drug was licenced. There are currently more than 25 drugs available, and our work over the last 23 years has directly determined how best these therapies are used, and monitored in infected patients. We have extended our work to a global perspective, in conjunction with the current rollout of antiretroviral therapy to areas of the world devastated by the epidemic - work which now informs guidelines of the World Health Organisation (WHO), and has resulted in a marked reduction in mortality.
UCL spin-out company BioVex was launched in 1999 to exploit research undertaken by David Latchman at the UCL Medical Molecular Biology Unit, Department of Biochemistry. (This department is now part of the Department of Structural and Molecular Biology, UCL/Birkbeck and Latchman is now Master of Birkbeck.) Biovex worked to develop inactivated herpes simplex viruses as therapies, and a promising dual-action oncolytic vaccine for solid tumours, OncoVEXGM-CSF, was taken into successful Phase II trials. In 2011 the company was bought out by Amgen for $1 billion — still the largest ever cash sale of a UK biotech — and Amgen has now taken this virus into a Phase III trial with promising initial results.
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.
Through their study of DNA polymerases from organisms of the domain archaea, researchers at Newcastle University and University College London identified the mechanism by which these organisms avoid potentially damaging mutations in their DNA. As a consequence of this work they invented a novel genetically-engineered DNA polymerase. This enzyme has been patented and is the world's only high-fidelity, proofreading DNA polymerase that efficiently reads through uracil in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR is a very widely used technique in biomedical research. An international bioscience company [Text removed for publication, EV d] signed a licensing agreement with Newcastle University in 2008 to market the enzyme, and total sales since 2008 exceed [Text removed for publication, EV d]. Further commercial exploitation has begun through licensing agreements with other major companies.
Impact: Policy and public engagement: Formulation of the UK government's badger culling policy for the control of bovine tuberculosis that is currently being implemented. The underpinning research also had wider impact in terms of generating significant public debate and enhancing public engagement.
Significance: DEFRA has estimated the cost of TB control in England at £1 billion over the next 10 years without taking further action, and the cost of TB breakdown on a farm at £34,000
Beneficiaries: Livestock Industry (Cattle farms), Consumers, environment.
Attribution: Work performed by Professor Morrison (University of Edinburgh, UoE)
Reach: The immediate reach is the UK.