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A calf’s ear may be the best location for delivering a new vaccine with a dual purpose: relieving pain while also preventing unwanted pregnancies in cattle.

This approach was deemed sound enough to merit a $500,000 grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) for Dr. Hans Coetzee, head of anatomy and physiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University and his collaborator, Dr. Doug Jones, a professor at Iowa State University.

Dr. Coetzee’s career has long focused on finding ways to relieve pain in cattle, which has already resulted in national and international recognition earlier this year. In July, he was presented with the 2017 Animal Welfare award by the American Veterinary Medical Association. In August, he was invited South Korea where he was presented with the CEVA Global Animal Welfare Award by the World Veterinary Association.

In October, NIFA announced a list of 39 projects nationwide to receive funding through its Agriculture and Food Research Initiative program. The College of Veterinary Medicine was selected to receive more than $1.7 million in funding, including Dr. Coetzee’s project, “Optimizing an Immunocastration Vaccine Ear Implant to Prevent Pain Associated with Bovine Castration.”

“Our project will specifically work to optimize a long-lasting vaccine implanted under the skin of the ear to direct the calf's immune response to disrupt the development of the male reproductive organs,” Dr. Coetzee said. “Knowledge gained from this proposal will address current animal welfare concerns and will have an immediate and significant impact on the sustainability of U.S. beef production systems.”

Dr. Coetzee explained how physical castration of male calves destined for beef production has been one of the most common livestock management practices performed in the United States, amounting to about 10 million procedures per year. Benefits include a reduction in unwanted pregnancies, improved meat quality and fewer injuries in confinement operations.

“Pain experienced during physical castration is a significant animal welfare concern,” Dr. Coetzee said. “It is therefore critical for livestock producers to develop practical and cost-effective strategies to reduce the negative impact of surgical castration on beef cattle welfare and production. The long-term goal of our research group is to improve animal welfare through the development of practical strategies to alleviate pain associated with castration.”

In collaboration with researchers affiliated with the Nanovaccine Institute at Iowa State University, Dr. Coetzee’s research group has already developed a prototype of an implant that reduces testicular development in calves, but wants to determine the impact of age on the ability of the vaccine implant to produce effective immunocastration in calves throughout the production cycle.

“Our hypothesis is that the implant will be effective regardless whether it is administered to newborn calves, weaned calves or yearling calves,” Dr. Coetzee said. “We believe this research will deliver a technology that can eliminate pain associated with castration in cattle regardless of when the immunocastration implant is administered during the production cycle.”

This research will be supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant No. 2017-67015-27124 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Like a cell phone user might download the latest updates for an app, Dr. Waithaka Mwangi sees a possibility that cattle vaccines can be updated to protect against the most recent strains of disease-causing viruses.

Dr. Mwangi's theory received a favorable review from the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), resulting in a $495,000 grant for the associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine. In October, NIFA announced a list of 39 projects nationwide to receive funding through its Agriculture and Food Research Initiative program. The College of Veterinary Medicine was selected to receive more than $1.7 million in funding awards, including Dr. Mwangi's project, "Improved Vaccine Platforms for Safe and Effective Control of Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus (BVDV)."

"We are addressing a critical need for improved broadly protective BVDV vaccines that are free of negative effects and are affordable," Dr. Mwangi said. "The expected outcome will thereby increase productivity and profitability of U.S. cattle industry. Just as importantly, the technology will allow rapid vaccine upgrade to incorporate protective components from new BVDV strains that will emerge in future."

According to USDA statistics and others, the cattle industry accounts for roughly 40 percent of the total market value of U.S. agriculture. Because infections with BVDV represent a major economic loss, BVDV is categorized as a "High Priority Disease" of economic importance to U.S. animal agriculture, which Dr. Mwangi said creates a need for developing better vaccines.

"We have developed a new vaccine formulation that consists of several protective components from different BVDV strains," Dr. Mwangi elaborated. "These components were selected using the latest scientific approaches that utilized cumulative knowledge generated so far from BVDV vaccine development studies."

Dr. Mwangi's lab will test whether immunization of cattle with this new vaccine will confer protection against a majority of BVDV strains present in America.

"We expect that this new vaccine will be safe, affordable and capable of inducing protection against multiple BVDV strains," Dr. Mwangi said. "These expected outcomes will reduce losses caused by BVDV and thereby contribute to an increase in the efficiency of beef and dairy animal production systems."

This research will be supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant No. 2017-67015-26802 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. A full description of Dr. Mwangi's project can be found here: https://cris.nifa.usda.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/0?path=fastlink1.txt&id=anon&pass=&search=R=75556&format=WEBLINK

Can one size fit all? That’s the challenge being addressed by Dr. Weiping Zhang, professor of microbiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University.

A new grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) for $460,000 will enable Dr. Zhang to apply this approach as a cost-effective and efficient solution for controlling post-weaning diarrhea (PWD) in swine.

“Vaccination is probably the most practical and effective method to control diseases for swine producers, but no effective PWD vaccines have been developed due to technical challenges at inducing broad immunity against the different strains of diarrhea caused by enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC),” Dr. Zhang explained. “We propose to innovatively produce multiepitope fusion antigen (MEFA) and a live vaccine inducing broadly protective local mucosal immunity, and then, unambiguously assess efficacy of this vaccine in piglet challenge studies. With strongly supportive data from preliminary studies, in conjugation with years of combined experience of two investigators in ETEC research and vaccine development, we believe our proposed research will be completed.”

Dr. Zhang added that an effective PWD vaccine would save hundreds of millions of dollars each year for US swine producers, while also reducing antibiotic use. Innovation applied in this study could potentially be applied toward vaccine development against other diseases.

In 2016, Dr. Zhang was awarded a $2.1 million National Institutes of Health R01 grant for early vaccine research. The NIH has awarded two additional grants to Dr. Zhang in the last four years to develop vaccines against E. coli diarrhea.

“Diarrhea continues to be a leading cause of death in children under five years of age, and enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) is the most common bacterial cause of children's diarrhea,” Dr. Zhang said. “Currently, there are no available vaccines against ETEC-associated diarrhea. Whole-cell vaccine candidates have been under development, but require further improvements because they provide inadequate protection and produce unwanted adverse effects.”

“Effective vaccines for ETEC have proved to be very challenging,” said Dr. Frank Blecha, associate dean for research in the veterinary college. “Dr. Zhang’s vaccine development strategy for ETEC using multiepitope fusion antigens holds great promise for a vaccine that will limit diarrheal deaths in animals, and it may also have relevance to human health too.”

This research will be supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant No. 2017-67015-26632 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. A full description of Dr. Zhang’s NIFA-funded project is posted at: https://cris.nifa.usda.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/0?path=fastlink1.txt&id=anon&pass=&search=R=74866&format=WEBLINK