Tackling animal & zoonotic infections together

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Infectious diseases profoundly affect the productivity and welfare of farmed animals and threaten sustainable agriculture and global food security. Moreover, zoonoses that transmit to humans from farmed animals exert high societal and economic costs and have pandemic potential. These challenges intersect with many of the most urgent issues of our era, including the rise of antimicrobial resistance and impacts of animal agriculture on the climate and environment. Moreover, control of animal and zoonotic diseases is becoming more challenging as pathogens evolve to escape vaccine-mediated immunity and drugs become less effective.This proposal brings together two BBSRC-sponsored Institutes that offer national capability to combat animal and zoonotic diseases. We offer unique infrastructure, expertise and resources and have deep connections across the research and innovation system. Our organisations are globally important in training the next generation of scientists, technical specialists and research professionals needed to tackle animal and zoonotic infections. In doing so, we address skills and capacities defined by UKRI as vulnerable. We will harness this position to catalyse knowledge exchange and collaboration, both across sectors and disciplines. In particular, we will use our extensive network of collaborations with businesses (particularly animal pharmaceutical and breeding companies) and public or third sector organisations to enhance porosity and develop staff of diverse types and career stages, including those who support research (e.g. in business development, legal advice, animal use, biosafety, facility management, etc)Research strengths our organisations include, but are not limited to:World-class fundamental research on host-pathogen interactions to design new or improved solutions for disease control.Development & evaluation of veterinary vaccines (supported by our joint Immunological Toolbox & International Veterinary Vaccinology Network).Innovation in vaccine manufacture & platform technologies (e.g. Centre for Veterinary Vaccine Innovation & Manufacturing at Pirbright).Selective breeding of animals with enhanced resistance or resilience to infectious diseases in partnership with breeding companies.Engineering Biology to confer resistance to infectious diseases (e.g. via genome editing or transgenesis).Development of alternatives to antibiotics.Development of specific & sensitive diagnostic tests for rapid detection of pathogens & drug resistances. Novel 3Rs approaches to study infectious diseases. Tracing the evolution & spread of novel pathogens & modelling the impact of interventions.Use of Artificial Intelligence to predict the tropism & risk of emerging pathogens. Our extensive partnerships with businesses provide a key route to implement advances at global scale. Moreover, we partner with public and third sector organisations in low- and middle-income countries to deliver gains for smallholder farmers to alleviate poverty and malnutrition (e.g. in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute).