Development of a novel antimicrobial for the treatment of an economically important disease in chickens

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Poultry meat currently enjoys several comparative advantages over other meats, e.g. affordability, convenience, absence of religious guidelines restricting consumption, healthy image, limited GHG emissions, lower production costs, short rearing time and lower required investments. Rapid population growth, increased urbanisation and rising per capita income in emerging markets mean we are going to need at least 70% more food by 2050 than what is available today. This challenge is significant, especially given that natural resource constraints, such as arable land and fresh water, will restrict the resources available to meet this increased demand. The FAO estimates that economic losses to poultry diseases are currently 10 to 20 percent of the gross value of production in developed poultry industries, and are likely to be higher in developing countries. This equates to a significant amount of recources wasted. Thus in order to meet future demand for animal protein such waste at the hands of disease must be reduced. This is especially pertinant given that the wide spread use of antibiotics, which has drastically increased the productivity of the proulty industry over the last 30 years, is coming to and end due to increasing antibiotic resistance, regulation and consumer pressure. This project aims to develop a novel protein based antimicrobial that will selectively kill economically destructive species of bacteria found in poultry, thus enabling the sustainable replacement of certain antibiotics within the poultry industry.