Acquisition of a high-speed high-volume floor centrifuge to support research in the field of veterinary infectious diseases

动物健康对加拿大农业的盈利能力、动物产品的质量、消费者的健康以及加拿大公众都有重大影响。仅一种病毒性传染病，如猪繁殖与呼吸综合征，每年就给加拿大养猪业造成约1.5亿美元的损失，不幸的是，该行业还必须应对其他几种传染病。因此，改善加拿大牲畜的整体动物健康状况至关重要。蒙特利尔大学兽医学院（FMV）的10名研究人员是一个在猪传染病领域拥有国际声誉和长期专业知识的研究小组（生产动物传染病研究小组（GREMIP））的成员。该小组成立于80年代初，在此期间，获得了一些科学设备，以便在生物安全2级环境中进行实验。不幸的是，GREMIP的30年历史的高速大容量落地离心机（HS-HV/FC）自2014年底以来一直出现故障，即使在多次尝试修复之后。另一台33年历史的BSL 2 HS-HV/FC在FMV可用，但仍然存在一些电子和机械问题（温度控制缺陷，计时器故障，离心机桶内结冰等）。总体而言，FMV HS-HV/FC装置已达到使用寿命，需要尽快更换。本建议书中要求的设备，即HS-HV/FC，将满足FMV研究微生物学家社区目前和未来的研究需求。细菌学家、流行病学家、免疫学家、寄生虫学家和病毒学家正在GREMIP中工作，他们的研究课题多种多样，包括：细菌生物膜和群体感应、食品安全和人畜共患疾病、抗菌药物耐药性和抗生素使用的替代品、宿主耐药性、疫苗和诊断测试开发、抗病毒、抗原动物、细菌发病机制、病毒发病机制和合并感染发病机制。HS-HV/FC是一种昂贵的实验室设备，但它也是一种多用途的基础科学仪器。因此，它是GREMIP研究人员为许多不同目的经常使用的一个不可或缺的工具，例如：微生物学家日常工作所必需的细菌、寄生虫和病毒原种生产，（病原体组分和重组蛋白的纯化），其对于疫苗开发和其它应用以及病原体分子如脂质的生产和纯化是必需的，多糖和蛋白质。在HS-HV/FC的帮助下，每年将有超过35名本科生和研究生接受GREMIP研究人员的监督和培训，为培养高素质人才做出重大贡献。

Animal health has a major impact on the profitability of Canadian agriculture, the animal products quality, the health of consumers, and on the Canadian general public. Just one viral infectious disease like porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome causes around 150 millions of dollars losses per year to the Canadian swine industry and unfortunately, this industry has to deal with several other infectious diseases. Thus, it is crucial to improve the overall animal health status of the Canadian livestock. Ten researchers of the Faculté de médecine vétérinaire (FMV) at the Université de Montréal are members of a research group that possess an international reputation and long standing expertise in the field of swine infectious diseases (the Research Group on Infectious Diseases of Production Animals (GREMIP)). This group was founded in the early 80’s and in that period, several scientific equipment were acquired to perform experiments in a biosecurity level 2 (BSL2) environment. Unfortunately, the GREMIP’s 30 year old high-speed high-volume floor centrifuge (HS-HV/FC) has been out of order since late 2014, even after several attempts to repair it. Another, 33 year old, BSL2 HS-HV/FC is available at FMV but still has several electronic and mechanical problems (defect in the temperature control, timer out of order, ice formation in the centrifuge tub, etc.). Overall, the FMV HS-HV/FC apparatus have reached their useful life and need to be replaced as soon as possible. The equipment requested in this proposal, i.e. HS-HV/FC, will address the present and future research needs of the FMV research microbiologist’s community. Bacteriologists, epidemiologists, immunologists, parasitologists and virologists are working within GREMIP and their research topics are various and include: bacterial biofilm and quorum sensing, food safety and zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance and alternative to antibiotic use, host resistance, vaccines and diagnostic tests development, antiviral, antiprotozoal, bacterial pathogenesis, viral pathogenesis and co-infections pathogenesis. The HS-HV/FC is a laboratory expensive equipment but it is also a multipurpose basic scientific instrument. Thus, it is an indispensable tool used by GREMIP researchers on a regular basis for many different purposes such as: bacterial, parasites and viral stock productions which are essential for microbiologist’s every day work, large antigen productions (purification of pathogen components and recombinant proteins) which are essential for vaccine development and other applications as well as production and purification of pathogen molecules such as lipids, polysaccharides and proteins. With the help of the HS-HV/FC, more than 35 undergraduate and graduate students will be supervised and trained by the GREMIP researchers every year, contributing significantly to the training of highly qualified personal.