The
Veterinary Training Research Initiative (VTRI) - VT0104
Animal susceptibility to infection and disease: do husbandry and welfare drive microbial colonisation and immune development
VT0104 led by PROFESSOR TOM HUMPHREY and DR MICK BAILEY - Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol
For Tom Humphrey and Mick Bailey, how animals are reared and cared for plays directly into the safety of the food that ends up on all our plates. They point to the worrying statistic that this year, like many another year, half a million people and more will suffer the effects of bacterial poisoning from what they eat. The main culprits, Campylobacter and Salmonella, are particular challenges for vets caring for chicken and pigs, two intensively farmed meat sources.
To get to grips with this, the University of Bristol team has set itself the task of a multi-factorial study: to see how the animals’ environment – factors like the mixing of different groups of animals, and the stresses that follow - impacts on their ability to resist disease. Especially important within the study is the development of an understanding of how the colonisation of commensal bacteria in the growing animal is affected by pressures of the young animal’s life, of weaning and mixing with other animals. So the team will find itself focusing on the individual animal to correlate its position in the social hierarchy with the commensal flora in its gut – and in turn, with that animal’s immune status and its susceptibility to disease. The pathogen itself, its host, the animal environment and husbandry – all will be studied minutely, along with infection routes on site.
What particularly excites Humphrey and Bailey is the chance VTRI is giving them to study the link between microbiology and immunology on the one hand, and behaviour and welfare on the other. For those joining the scheme that too must be one of the main attractions – just as the project’s design is multi-factorial, so is the research involved multi-disciplinary, drawing in a wide range of professional and clinical expertise and experience. The training planned reflects this, ranging as it does from sixth-form studentships to undergraduate and postgraduate opportunities and postdoctoral fellowships. Research study leave for veterinary-qualified academic staff is also offered.
From microbes to management, VT0104 will examine every avenue that leads to animal infection, and so to human illness. Anyone at risk of food poisoning – that is, all of us! - will have good reason to thank the Bristol team when their work is done.
Further information is available on: Defra's science pages: ‘Animal susceptibility to infection and disease: do husbandry systems and welfare drive microbial colonisation and immune development?’ (VT0104) and the University of Bristol Veterinary Science website.
- First Annual Appraisal
(92 KB).
For more information, please contact the Programme Leader at
Tom.Humphrey@bristol.ac.uk
or visit the website www.vetschool.bris.ac.uk/vtri/
Page last modified: 26 January, 2007