Insecticide targets in the nervous system: Discovery and design for sustainable insect pest control. Insect pests impose massive costs in food production, in human health and in the wellbeing of our companion animals. Chemical insecticides remain a major weapon in the control of these pests, but the use of insecticides has some downsides. The way in which insecticides kill insects is poorly understood and insecticide usage has negative impacts in the environment – the persistence of chemical r ....Insecticide targets in the nervous system: Discovery and design for sustainable insect pest control. Insect pests impose massive costs in food production, in human health and in the wellbeing of our companion animals. Chemical insecticides remain a major weapon in the control of these pests, but the use of insecticides has some downsides. The way in which insecticides kill insects is poorly understood and insecticide usage has negative impacts in the environment – the persistence of chemical residues and the killing of beneficial insects along with the pests. Further, insects become resistant to insecticides, so pest control is lost. This proposed research seeks to identify the ‘achilles heal’ in insect pests and to target them with new generation insecticides to gain safe, effective and sustainable control.Read moreRead less
Application of DNA vaccination to the control of gastrointestinal nematodes in livestock. Gastrointestinal nematode parasites inflict great losses in sheep and cattle and reliance on anthelmintic drugs for their control is problematic. Vaccination would provide a better alternative but has been difficult to achieve. This proposal aims to apply novel DNA vaccination strategies to the development of parasite vaccines through optimisation of DNA delivery, development of new vaccination vectors and ....Application of DNA vaccination to the control of gastrointestinal nematodes in livestock. Gastrointestinal nematode parasites inflict great losses in sheep and cattle and reliance on anthelmintic drugs for their control is problematic. Vaccination would provide a better alternative but has been difficult to achieve. This proposal aims to apply novel DNA vaccination strategies to the development of parasite vaccines through optimisation of DNA delivery, development of new vaccination vectors and modulation of immune responses by co-delivery of cytokine genes. The results of these studies will not only add a new approach to vaccine development against gastrointestinal parasites but will also contribute to our knowledge of DNA vaccination in large animals.Read moreRead less
Application of in vivo electroporation to DNA immunisation. The in vivo delivery of plasmid DNA induces immune responses to the encoded protein vaccine. In large animals including humans, DNA vaccination needs to be further improved before becoming a commercial reality, at least partially due to the very low levels of expression in vivo. In vivo electroporation has proven to be an effective way to enhance the level of protein expression and increase DNA vaccine efficacy. We combine enhanced in ....Application of in vivo electroporation to DNA immunisation. The in vivo delivery of plasmid DNA induces immune responses to the encoded protein vaccine. In large animals including humans, DNA vaccination needs to be further improved before becoming a commercial reality, at least partially due to the very low levels of expression in vivo. In vivo electroporation has proven to be an effective way to enhance the level of protein expression and increase DNA vaccine efficacy. We combine enhanced in vivo expression using electroporation with the co-delivery of plasmids encoding cytokines to enhance and modulate DNA vaccine in sheep. We will apply our findings to bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV), both as an animal model for humans and as an economically important diseases of livestock.Read moreRead less