Enabling dairy farmers to conduct onsite, early stage monitoring of bovine mastitis – Assessing a route to market for a portable PCR workflow.

所有奶牛场面临的一个巨大挑战是管理牲畜的健康。一种被称为乳腺炎的感染给农民造成的经济损失比任何其他牛疾病都要大。乳腺炎是一种乳房感染，导致产奶动物产奶量和质量下降。当检测到感染时，典型的方法是用抗生素治疗整个动物群，包括没有表现出症状的奶牛。这对没有患病的奶牛来说是不健康的，并有助于抗生素耐药性。由于晚期感染，农民失去了从损失的牛奶中获得的预期收入。如果早期发现，感染可以在没有抗生素的情况下进行治疗，并防止传播。最可靠的诊断方法是PCR技术，与用于识别COVID的方法相同。然而，这些诊断测试是由外部实验室完成的，它们可能非常昂贵和缓慢。Bento Lab是一种便携式PCR工作站，易于设置。我们现有客户的应用范围从分散的疟疾研究到国家真菌基因组学调查。我们最近开发了一个应用套件，使鸟类保护者能够在几个小时的培训内进行鸟类性别鉴定的DNA测试。在Innovate UK的支持下，我们将利用我们现有的技术为奶农开发一个软件包，以监测他们的牛，并及早发现感染。

A big challenge for all dairy farms is managing the health of their livestock. An infection called mastitis causes farmers more economic losses than any other cattle disease.Mastitis is an udder infection that results in a dairy animal producing milk at lower quantity and quality. When an infection is detected, the typical approach is to treat the entire group of animals with antibiotics, including the cows that don't show symptoms. This is unhealthy for the cows that do not have the disease, and contributes to antibiotic resistance. Due to the advanced infection, the farmer loses the income expected from the lost milk.When caught early, the infection can be treated without antibiotics, and prevented from spreading. The most reliable diagnostic method is PCR technology, the same method used to identify COVID. However these diagnostic tests are done by external laboratories, and they can be very expensive and slow.Bento Lab is a portable PCR workstation that is easy to set-up. The applications of our existing customers range from decentralised malaria research to national fungi genomics surveys. We recently developed an application kit that enables bird conservationists to conduct a DNA test for bird sexing within a few hours of training.With the support of Innovate UK, we will use our existing technology to develop a package for dairy farmers to monitor their cattle, and catch infections early.