Category Archives: Biotech

The ‘big five’ African vintage cows

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We are losing the genetic resources locked up in the world’s domesticated livestock at an unprecedented rate
 
Of the 7,616 breeds of domestic livestock reported to FAO, 1,491, or 20%, are classified as being ‘at risk’. What’s at stake in this ‘livestock meltdown’ is nothing less than the animal basis for world food security. If we are to adapt food production systems to radically changing conditions in the coming decades, animal as well as plant genetic diversity will be critical resources for doing so. Traditional breeds offer diversity, which is the only base for future selection and adaptation. The on-going loss of our livestock genetic heritage is tantamount to losing a road map for survival—the key to food security, environmental stability and improving the human condition. Here are five rare ‘vintage cows’ of Africa that could be part of that road map.

SHEKO

SHEKO

Only some 2,400 Sheko cattle remain alive. These relatively small animals, which are related to West Africa’s ancient N’Dama cattle, are found only in the remote corner of southwestern Ethiopia, near the Sudanese border, where the Sheko people bred them for millennia for their natural resistance to disease, particularly tsetse-transmitted trypanosomosis. The Sheko are believed to be the last remnants of Africa’s original humpless shorthorn cattle, which were probably first domesticated in this region of eastern Africa.

ANKOLE

ANKOLE

There are about 3.2 million Ankole cattle in five countries of East and Central Africa. The Ankole are drought-resistant and beloved by their keepers also for their uncommon gentleness, beauty, rich milk and tasty meat (believed also to be low in cholesterol). Rapidly expanding human populations, infrastructures and markets, however, are forcing more and more farmers to replace their indigenous African Ankole cattle with exotic breeds such as the black-and-white Holstein-Friesians dairy cows, which produce much more milk. At their current rates of decline, these hardy, graceful animals will disappear within the next 50 years.

RED FULANI
RED FULANI
This large bony and typically red-coated animal has extremely long lyre-shaped horns. It is kept by pastoral Fulani people, who herd the animal across open semi-arid rangelands of the Sahel that criss-cross five countries of West and Central Africa. This is a dual-purpose milk and meat animal prized for its ability to cope with heat, ticks, insect bites and great water and feed scarcity.

 KURI
KURI

These hamitic longhorn humpless cattle inhabit the hot, humid shores and archipelagos of the Lake Chad Basin in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. They are large-bodied, typically white, and carry highly distinctive bulbous horns. The breed is adapted to the hot and humid climate and can survive long droughts. They are managed under traditional systems, feeding on grass on the small islands of Lake Chad. They are excellent swimmers and follow their herdsmen through the water as they travel from an island to another; their bulbous horns are considered useful in floating. The Kuri are highly fertile animals and excellent milk and meat producers. ILRI estimates the remaining population of Kuri, now threatened with extinction, to number only some 10,000 head.

IMPROVED BORAN
IMPROVED BORAN

The semi-nomadic Borana tribe in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya herd the Boran, a medium- to large-sized and long-legged zebu animal that has considerable potential as a meat breed. On acquiring them early in this century, Kenyan ranchers judiciously crossed the original Ethiopian Boran with European breeds. This scheme to maximize the potential of an indigenous breed rather than attempt to replace it with exotic types has been highly successful. Today, the Improved Boran is one of Africa’s top beef breeds. Docile and well-adapted to hot, dry ranching conditions and to sparse pasture, these valuable animals have been exported from Africa to other continents, such as Australia, and from there to the USA.

Further Information

A ‘Livestock Meltdown’ Is Occurring
As Hardy African, Asian, and Latin American Farm Animals Face Extinction

Visit the online press room for further information and a series of short films and high-quality images of the third world’s unique farm animal breeds.

Germany helps Africa fight bird flu by investing in its people

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Substantial GTZ support provided to ILRI and AU-IBAR has provided 80 laboratory staff in 37 African countries with specialized knowledge in rapid detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza
 
This program of the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) for early detection of bird flu in Africa did more than train people in advanced techniques for diagnosing a new disease. It invested in people, connecting them in a ‘who’s who’ of skilled African laboratory staff as well as a handful of international bird flu experts focusing on Africa. It united these laboratory experts in a common cause.

As Carola von Morstein, coordinator of the GTZ Task Force on Avian Influenza, puts it, ‘This—remarkably the first regional training in Africa to diagnose avian influenza—is helping to improve transparency, communication and information exchange in bird flu campaigns. We will publish in print and on the web a training manual so we can widely share the lessons learned in this training. One of those lessons is the great advantage to be gained in coordinating work to prevent and control bird flu across the continent.’

Staff at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Africa Union’s Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), who organized the series of intensive training courses conducted over the last year across the continent, are interested in continuing their work with GTZ to sustain this cooperation among agricultural, veterinary and medical experts. Such inter-sector cooperation in disease control is regrettably unusual in all countries but particularly so in those lacking resources to bring together experts from different ministries and disciplines.

ILRI’s research director John McDermott is excited about this cooperative aspect of the project. ‘The network of African veterinary and human diagnosticians created by this training over the past year has great potential. It has fostered “diagnostic champions” in Africa who are being consulted by their colleagues. The benefits of this will go beyond avian influenza to other important infectious diseases of both people and animals.’

ILRI’s director general Carlos Seré also sees opportunity to build on the momentum that has been created. ‘We’re interested to explore with others how this regional emergency training might be transformed into long-term indigenous capacity-building for better control of infectious diseases in Africa.’

Other partners involved in organizing the training courses or providing training materials were the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Animal Health Organization (OIE), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the U.S.-based Centres for Disease Control (CDC). ILRI and AU-IBAR worked closely together to conduct a basic 10-day training course that they held in three countries: Cameroon, Kenya and Senegal. They drew trainers from OIE/FAO/WHO avian influenza reference laboratories, ILRI, AU-IBAR, CDC-Kenya, the Institut Pasteur, the Centre Pasteur and African universities and research organizations.

These courses revealed that most African countries have the capacity to collect samples of bird flu virus, including the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, and ship these to designated laboratories for analyses. Some of these labs can also perform basic serological tests for bird flu virus. But few of them are equipped with the advanced diagnostic tests in molecular diagnosis and virology or with the BL3 facility (a laboratory built to a secure biosafety level 3) needed to handle the deadly live H5N1 virus. ILRI and AU-IBAR staff organizing the training courses targeted the few labs that did have these facilities to serve as regional reference laboratories and provided 20 of their staff with two advanced training courses (one in English, the other in French) conducted at South Africa’s ARC-Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI), in Pretoria, which is equipped with all the facilities needed for diagnosis of avian influenza. (OVI had previously trained staff in southern African countries.)

Funding for this project was provided by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GTZ within its ‘Poverty Reduction in Rural Areas’ project. The latter works to boost—in a sustained manner—the capacity of developing countries to prepare for and respond to outbreaks of bird flu. With uncommon foresight, this German project further helps countries implement preventive measures that help their farming communities maintain their livestock, the mainstay of livelihoods of the rural poor. Among the farm animals at risk from zoonotic diseases and conventional programs implemented to control them are many local poultry breeds kept by the poorest of the poor.

Carola von Morstein, leader of the GTZ Task Force conducting this pro-poor work fighting avian and human influenza, visited Nairobi this week to consult with ILRI and AU-IBAR directors and scientists who organized the training and tailored the English and French courses to suit African circumstances.

In early July, the first follow-up training took place in three veterinary laboratories in Ghana. Staffs of the laboratories in Accra, Pong Tamale and Kumasi were trained by the German Friedrich-Löffler-Institute (FLI). This Federal Research Institute for Animal Health has a Task Force for Epidemiology. GTZ and FLI are together providing training to affected countries such as Ghana. GTZ also procured for these laboratories equipment, such as Quick Tests Influenza Kits, V-bottomed Microtest-Plates and Pipettes, to ensure that the country is equipped for diagnosis of bird flu.

For more information about this GTZ project, email the GTZ task team:
carola.morstein-von@gtz.de> or
kerstin.schoell@gtz.de

or the Rene Bessin at AU-IBAR:
rene.bessin@au-ibar.org

or Duncan Mwangi or Roger Pellé at ILRI:
d.mwangi@cgiar.org and r.pelle@cgiar.org

John Vercoe Conference: Animal breeding for poverty alleviation

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The John Vercoe Conference and seventh Peter Doherty Distinguished Lecture will take place at ILRI headquarters in Nairobi 8-9 November 2007.
 


The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the John Vercoe Conference and the seventh Peter Doherty Distinguished Lecture. The conference theme is ‘Animal breeding for poverty alleviation – harnessing new science for greater impact’.

The John Vercoe Conference will be inaugurated by the Kenyan Minister of Science and Technology, Hon. Noah Wekesa and thereafter, followed by the presentation of a keynote paper by Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Further topics include:

  • Case studies of breeding programs within developing countries (Christie Peacock, Farm Africa, UK)
  • Breeding program design issues for small-holders (Ed Rege, ILRI)
  • New opportunities for reproductive technologies in developing countries (Johan van Arendonk, Wageningen University, Netherlands)
  • New DNA-based technologies and their prospects for developing countries (Julius van der Werf, University of New England, Australia / Brian Kinghorn)
  • How animal breeding relates to other interventions to reduce poverty (Ade Freeman, ILRI)

The conference will be held at ILRI headquarters in Nairobi on 8-9 November 2007. For further information and to register for the conference, go to the John Vercoe Conference website at: https://www.ilri.org/johnvercoeconference
 

Pioneering bird flu research program launched today

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A GBP3.9 million (USD7.8 million) study, launched today by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) to develop better ways of controlling bird flu aims to help the world's poorest farmers tackle avian flu and safeguard their livelihoods.
 
The DFID-funded research programme will examine the best ways to control avian flu and also how to reduce the impact of the disease on poor peoples’ livelihoods. The programme focuses on Africa and Southeast Asia, with initial research to be conducted in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mali and Nigeria.  The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) will manage the research in Africa, while in Southeast Asia the research will be managed by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Royal Veterinary College and the University of California at Berkeley.

John McDermott, ILRI’s Deputy Director General for Research, says ‘In global avian influenza discussions there are many different perspectives. This project seeks to provide evidence on the impacts and control of avian influenza from the perspectives of developing country farmers, technical staff and policy makers,  to allow them to effectively make decisions of importance to them.’

New Approach
The DFID-funded research programme marks a new approach as previous work has largely focused on eradicating Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) from poultry populations and preparing for a potential human pandemic.

Launching the programme today, the UK’s International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, said: ‘As well as claiming lives, avian flu – and the measures taken to control it – is damaging the livelihoods of farmers in the developing world. It is important to investigate how best to protect them when avian flu strikes.

‘This pioneering research will help find ways of helping the poor while also ensuring appropriate control measures are followed so that farmers do not hide, slaughter or eat infected birds. The first results of the study are expected within a year and will be discussed with policy makers in Africa and Asia.’

The potential impact on agriculture of the continuing spread of HPAI and the fear of this developing into a human pandemic are very great. The World Bank recently estimated that a pandemic could reduce the world’s GDP by five per cent, with a higher proportional loss in developing countries. To date, HPAI infections have claimed more than 170 lives in 12 countries since 2003 and, in South East Asia, led to the culling of more than 140 million birds with a total estimated economic loss to the region of more than $10 billion.

Jeff Mariner, senior epidemiologist at ILRI, says, ‘Although the potential of HPAI to adapt to man and cause a global pandemic is the primary concern motivating much of the donor response to this disease in the world, human disease is as yet a rare event. Very few farming communities have actually experienced human cases. The primary concern of farmers today is the negative impact that repeated waves of poultry mortality due to HPAI have on their livelihoods. Understanding the impact of HPAI in poultry on peoples’ livelihoods will provide entry points to motivate and drive effective control programmes. Enhanced control of HPAI to reduce the risk of a human pandemic is only possible through win-win scenarios that address the present effects of HPAI.’

Further information:
Click here for the DFID press release

Click here for the IFPRI press release

Developing-country farmers to benefit from new foot-and-mouth disease ‘road map’

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A major new report launched today charts a pathway towards the effective control of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in developing countries where the disease is a serious and growing threat.
The report, ‘Global Road Map for Improving the Tools to Control Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Endemic Settings’, launched today (17 April 2007) at the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in Rome, envisions ‘a world in which livestock-based livelihoods, enterprises and trade can flourish unimpeded by FMD’. The road map focuses on the outputs of a workshop held in Agra, India, in December 2006.

Efficacious vaccines, strategically deployed, have revolutionized control of many infectious human and animal diseases. For FMD, which severely constrains the welfare of millions of small-scale livestock farmers in the developing world, currently available vaccines do not meet many of the basic requirements necessary for sustainable control. FMD continues to be a persistent constraint to livestock production throughout the developing world. It can significantly reduce production of milk and meat and limits the ability of draft animals to work.

Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD): Quick Facts

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) affects cloven-hoofed animals and is one of the most contagious diseases of mammals, with great potential for causing severe economic loss. FMD is endemic in parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America.
Hosts: Principally cattle, domestic buffaloes, yaks, sheep, goats, domestic and wild pigs and wild ruminants.
Transmission: Direct or indirect contact; animate vectors (humans, etc.); inanimate vectors (vehicles, implements); airborne, especially in temperate zones (up to 60 km overland and 300 km by sea).
Sources: Incubating and clinically affected animals; breath, saliva, faeces, and urine; milk and semen; meat and by-products and carriers, particularly cattle and water buffalo; convalescent animals and exposed vaccinates (virus can persist for up to 30 months in cattle or longer in buffalo, 9 months in sheep).

Source: Excerpted from World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Animal Diseases Data www.oie.int

According to John McDermott, deputy director general for research at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), ‘FMD is a major obstacle to productivity and market access in many of ILRI’s target regions, particularly South Asia, the Horn of Africa and southern Africa. It severely limits market opportunities for poor farmers and nations wishing to access more lucrative markets, both regionally and internationally.

‘FMD also can increase the vulnerability of small-scale farmers in mixed cropping systems where animal traction is important. For example, in Southeast Asia where rice is a staple, people are heavily reliant on water buffalo for ploughing. A FMD outbreak leaves the buffalo open to secondary infections, putting these highly valued animals out of action for a very long time.’

Brian Perry, who recently retired as senior scientist at ILRI and is now collaborating with ILRI on this and other projects, says, ‘There is an urgent and long overdue need to address the special research needs of poor people in endemic FMD settings. Current research on vaccines and associated tools for the control of FMD is driven more by the needs of relatively rich FMD-free countries which are dealing with and eliminating incursions of the disease, rather than by the needs of relatively poor FMD-endemic countries which are interested in longer-term management and control of the disease.’

In early 2006, Perry, ‘navigator’ of the FMD ‘Roadmap’ process, approached the Wellcome Trust (UK) to seek support for an initiative to tackle this need. Following submission of a joint proposal from ILRI and the UK’s Institute for Animal Health (IAH), the Wellcome Trust (UK) agreed to provide partial funding and, with the support of additional donors—notably the European Union—planning was begun to organize the meeting that became the launch pad of the ‘Global Road Map for Improving the Tools to Control Foot and Mouth Disease in Endemic Settings’.

‘We decided at an early stage that the road map workshop should be held in an FMD-endemic country’, says Keith Sones, workshop facilitator and co-editor of the report. ‘India, with its impressive and ambitious ongoing program to control FMD, was an obvious choice. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) was very supportive and agreed to host the workshop in Agra.’

According to VK Taneja, deputy director general of animal scrence at ICAR, ‘Livestock production in India is growing faster than arable agriculture. The value of output from the livestock sector has risen over the years and is now 26% of the total value of output from agriculture. It is predicted that livestock will contribute more than half of the total agricultural output in the next 25–30 years.’

‘One of the biggest impediments to growth of the livestock sector is the large-scale prevalence of FMD’, says Taneja. ‘In most Asian countries, FMD is endemic and severely limits the region’s ability to participate in international trade. Developmental strategies for control and eradication of FMD—including improving existing conventional vaccines and diagnostics for their quality and efficacy—will pave the way for the improved growth and productivity of livestock, especially in small-farm production systems, and for ensuring their participation and access to global markets.’

While the economic losses associated with major outbreaks of FMD in industrial countries, notably in Europe in 2001, grabbed world headlines, the disease continues to cause enormous, recurrent losses across large swathes of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America.

‘The direct losses alone due to FMD in India are estimated to be more than USD4.5 billion per year; indirect production losses could be much more’, says Dr R Venkataramanan, principal scientist at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, in Bangalore.

‘The Roadmap report recognizes that vaccines currently available for the control of FMD are not ideal for use in many developing countries’, says Perry. ‘To remain effective they must be kept under constant refrigeration, so the protection they offer is better suited to the needs of FMD-free countries rather than countries where the disease is a constant and daily threat. We realize that it will take considerable time to develop and make available new improved vaccines suitable for developing- country conditions. But in the meantime much can be done with current vaccines and diagnostics, especially if their use is complemented with sound epidemiological and economic decision-support tools to guide and facilitate their effective use.’

Alexander Müller, FAO Assistant Director-General, declares that ‘FAO is ready to support this important initiative, which is expected to provide some of the breakthroughs needed for use in the most affected areas, and which will support the efforts of FAO with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to reduce FMD risk by promoting progressive control of FMD at all levels. The initiative from the research community is strongly needed and we are happy to play our role in launching this initiative and facilitating transfer of effective new approaches.’

Work undertaken after the Agra workshop ensured that research proposals were developed for funding high-priority areas identified during the workshop. Lead writers facilitated development of concept notes to be submitted to donor agencies in the fields of immunology, vaccine design and epidemiological and economic tools. In addition, some regional concept notes were developed focussing on southern Africa, South and Southeast Asia and South America. These draft concept notes are included in the road map report and provide guidance on further development of the tools for FMD control. Using the products of the road map process, ILRI and partners are now developing a project proposal that, once funded, will move the world closer to the vision of ‘a world in which livestock-based livelihoods, enterprises and trade can flourish unimpeded by FMD’

India

Participants of the Global Road Map for Improving the Tools to Control Foot-and-Mouth Disease in
Endemic Settings workshop held at Agra, India, 29 November – 1 December 2006

Download the FMD Road Map report

Citation: Perry BD and Sones KR (eds). 2007. Global road map for improving the tools to control foot-and-mouth disease in endemic settings. Report of a workshop held at Agra, India, 29 November–1 December 2006, and subsequent road map outputs. ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), Nairobi, Kenya. pp. 88

Vaccine agency to reduce loss of human and animal life in developing countries is launched

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The Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicine (GALVmed) recently unveiled animal health projects it will tackle over the next ten years.

GALVmed announced progress on vaccine and treatments for Newcastle disease in poultry and East Coast fever and Rift Valley fever in cattle at its international launch at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), in Nairobi, on Friday 9 March 2007. This marked the beginning of a 10-year program aimed at creating sustainable solutions to the loss of human and animal life caused by livestock diseases, which threaten 600 million of the poorest people in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

GALVmed, a non-profit organization funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), is partnering with private and public-sector organizations around the world. It has identified 13 livestock diseases as key targets for development of livestock vaccines and animal health diagnostics and medicines. Founder members of the agency include the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), FARM-Africa, Pfizer, Intervet and Merial. GALVmed exists to broker partnerships among pharmaceutical companies and other public and private-sector organizations to develop accessible and affordable animal vaccines for the whole world’s poorest farmers.

Zoonotic diseases, which are transmitted between animals and humans, mainly afflict the poorest households, as evidenced by the recent outbreak of Rift Valley fever in livestock in Kenya, which killed 150 people. Brian Perry, a senior scientist at ILRI, warns that ‘Today, combating livestock diseases is everybody’s business – tropical animal diseases are no longer “just a local problem”. For example, there is a threat that diseases like Rift Valley fever will follow bluetongue into Europe.’

GALVmed’s chief executive Steve Sloan explains that ‘Every year, poor farmers worldwide lose an average of a quarter and in some cases half, of their herds and flocks to preventable disease. This devastates developing economies. Many of these are zoonotic and so also cause human deaths.

Livestock play a critical role in helping people escape poverty. Livestock disease is one of the greatest barriers to development for poor livestock keepers. Flocks and herds die every year from diseases for which vaccine simply do not exist or are beyond the reach of the poor. John McDermott, ILRI’s deputy director general for research says, ‘ILRI scientists and partners have done ground breaking science to develop an experimental vaccines to protect cattle against East Coast fever. The next steps are to conduct trials to facilitate the delivery of this vaccine to the farmers. To do that, we need specialist partners who will test, manufacture and market the vaccine and make it accessible and affordable to the thousands of livestock keepers afflicted by this cattle killing disease.

Click here for the GALVmed News release.

To find out more about GALVmed visit the website
www.galvmed.org

Wellcome Trust, Science seek to stem upsurge in animal disease emergencies hitting developing countries

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Researchers are converging in Cambridge, UK, to find ways of translating research findings faster into pro-poor animal health policy and practice.
 
Rift Valley fever, which continues to spread in East Africa, killing more than 90 people in Kenya alone, brings into sharp focus the inadequacies of animal health delivery systems in developing countries and the role of the global community in redressing these. This mosquito-transmitted disease is also hurting the livelihoods of poor people by killing their young cattle and sheep and causing ‘abortion storms’ in their pregnant stock.

Brian Perry, a veterinary epidemiologist at the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), argues today (19 January 2007) in Science, a leading scientific journal, that animal diseases impeding livestock enterprises in developing countries are being ignored by the global community, leaving developing countries stranded with outmoded disease control systems that serve neither the needs of the poor nor the global community. In his article, ‘Science for Development: Poverty Reduction through Animal Health’, Perry and co-writer Keith Sones argue that the global community needs to give greater thought and investment to building scientific capacity in animal health research within developing countries.

Perry’s article explores opportunities afforded by science to help resolve this mismatch. Perry also points out high-priority areas requiring new funding. The article sets the tone for a high-level conference on animal health research taking place in Cambridge, UK, next week, at which Dr Perry and other ILRI colleagues will be presenting their research findings to an international group of experts. The conference is co-sponsored by the Wellcome Trust (UK) and Science.

To obtain the article by Brian Perry, ‘Science for Development: Poverty Reduction through Animal Health’ (Science, Vol. 315. no. 5810, pp. 333–334), please contact the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) at +1 202-326-6440 or scipak@aaas.org. Or get the article online (subscription required) at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/315/5810/333.

For interviews, contact Catherine Mgendi at +254 20 422 3035 or cell: +254 726 243 046; c.mgendi@cgiar.org.
Or contact Brian Perry direct at +254 20 422 3000; b.perry@cgiar.org

Building African bioinformatics skills and expertise locally

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Specialists at a new-age computing facility are seeking partnerships with international universities to develop world-class bioinformatics capacity in Africa – and Africa's first generation of bioinformaticians.
 
One of the great recent successes of African biosciences was mapping the genetic code of a parasite known as Theileria parva. This single-celled parasite is transmitted to cattle by biting ticks and causes East Coast fever, which kills a million cattle a year in 11 countries of Africa and is responsible for up to half of all deaths of calves kept by pastoralists there. Much of the work that contributed to this world-class scientific breakthrough, published in the prestigious journal Science, was undertaken in Africa by scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, in partnership with scientists at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), based in the Maryland, USA.

Working with ILRI, scientists at TIGR first sequenced the genome of the T. parva parasite. Most of the subsequent work in annotating the sequence by identifying genes and assigning gene functions was performed by two bioinformatics specialists at ILRI— South African Etienne de Villiers and Kenyan Trushar Shah—using ILRI’s new high-performance computing facility at its Nairobi laboratories.

de Villiers, Shah and colleagues are hoping to build on this breakthrough to strengthen bioinformatics capacity in Africa. They are forming partnerships with leading universities worldwide with the aim of offering post- and under-graduate training in bioinformatics in and for Africa until African universities begin offering masters and doctoral degrees in this new discipline.

Genomics is the molecular characterization of all the genes in a species. It is concerned with sequencing and mapping all of the genes—together known as the genome—that make up a given species, and from this information, establishing what makes the species and the individuals within the species unique. Those working in genomics are interested to discover, for example, how genetic make up is responsible for making some species and individuals susceptible to disease while otheres tolerate or resist the same disease. The prospect of discovering such important biological factors makes genomics one of the most exciting fields in science today. Developments are rapid and new insights are being gained daily.

Bioinformatics is a combination of computer, information and biological sciences. Bioinformatics takes advantage of new computing and information technologies and exploits these to help scientists answer complex biological questions. Specialist databases and tools are used to manage the huge amounts of complex biological data being generated by genomics.

 High-performance computing in and for Africa
The high-performance computing facility on ILRI’s campus in Nairobi provides local scientists with access to state-of-the-art technologies to enable them to conduct extensive and large-scale genomics research fast and cost-effectively for the first time. The facility has been established in Nairobi to serve the bioinformatics needs of ILRI and the eastern and central African scientific community. It is being managed as a shared facility by a new regional science platform called ‘Biosciences eastern and central Africa’ (BecA), whose hub is at ILRI’s Nairobi laboratories.

Etienne de Villiers explains that, ‘Exploitation of the latest genome technologies requires scientists skilled in bioinformatics and with access to high-performance computing infrastructure. The strategy behind high-performance computing is “divide and conquer”. Dividing a complex problem into smaller component tasks, that can be worked on simultaneously by computer, saves time, physical and human resources and money.

‘Bioinformatics is a relatively new specialist area. We need to raise awareness of the field here in Africa and expose people to its potential. The West has spent millions of dollars sequencing the genomes of humans, animals, plants and parasites and the resulting data are freely available on the internet. This is a vast body of knowledge that local scientists can use to solve their specific problems or to answer research questions. All scientists in Africa need to make use of these data are a computer, good internet access and bioinformatics skills.’

Raising awareness and building capacity in Africa
ILRI/BecA training courses and research projects are already taking advantage of the high-performance computing facility, which was commissioned in January 2005. In association with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the Linnaeus Centre for Bioinformatics, in Uppsala, Sweden, ILRI and BecA recently ran a three-day training workshop that introduced 30 scientists and students from eastern and central Africa to the field of bioinformatics.

BecA scientist Trushar Shah says that ‘bioinformatics is a new and dynamic field that young African scientists should be getting involved in, whether as a specialist or a user exploiting the technology to help answer a complex research question. Our recent short training course was very successful and we are organizing a further course in April 2007.’

 

African bioinformatics skills and expertise

Participants at the Bioinformatics introductory course, August 2006
 

Home grown strategies and interim partnerships
de Villiers is an advocate of home-grown strategies that take into consideration local needs to build capacity in Africa. ‘One of our primary goals is to grow the number and competence of bioinformatics developers and users in the east and central Africa region. To do that, we have to be responsive to local needs. We are raising awareness of the importance and utility of bioinformatics, providing introductory training for early-career scientists, and giving skilled bioinformaticians in the region ready access to advanced tools, support and expertise. We are also considering the longer term and how best we can contribute to building bioinformatics skills and expertise throughout Africa.

‘Local universities are working hard to build capacity but at the moment are unable to award degrees in bioinformatics. Our thrust now is to explore partnerships with leading bioinformatics institutes to enable us to make undergraduate and postgraduate training possible. We are working to link up with universities with well-established training programs in bioinformatics to offer East and Central African students masters and doctoral degree training in bioinformatics, possibly through distance learning.
 
‘We are also planning to link up with universities and institutes that can host these students for a few months so they can gain practical experience in the applications of bioinformatics. This way we are also training future local trainers.’

de Villiers was recently made Extraordinary Lecturer at the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Unit of Pretoria University, in South Africa. This appointment enables him to supervise students from eastern and central Africa who are affiliated with the high-performance computing facility and wish to pursue higher degrees in bioinformatics through Pretoria University.

Innovative and collaborative veterinary organizations make vaccine available to Kenyan livestock keepers

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A group of determined Kenyan livestock keepers set in motion an innovative collaboration that has benefited cattle-keeping communities throughout Kenya
 
Starting in 2000, word started getting out among Kenyan pastoralists that a vaccine being administered in Tanzania was succeeding in protecting cattle against East Coast fever. Kenya at that time did not condone use of this vaccine due to perceived safety and other issues, and so Kenya ’s livestock keepers could not get hold of it. In response, they began to walk their calves across the Kenya border into Tanzania to get them vaccinated.

‘East Coast fever is responsible on average for half of the calf mortality in pastoral production systems in eastern Africa . This vaccine represented a much needed lifeline for many pastoralists, and livestock keepers in Kenya wanted access to it,’ Evans Taracha, head of animal health at at ILRI explained.

‘ILRI faced a dilemma. We had produced a vaccine right here in Nairobi, at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), that could protect pastoral and other cattle against East Coast fever, but, due to government regulations, our beneficiaries could not get access to it in Kenya.’

Kenya’s livestock keepers then started lobbying national authorities and called upon Vétérinaires sans Frontières (VSF)-Germany, an international veterinary NGO based in East Africa , to help them. Thus began a highly successful multi-partner collaboration.

Besides VSF-Germany, the collaboration includes ILRI, the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), the African Union-InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU/IBAR), the Director of Veterinary Services (DVS), the NGO VetAgro, and the community-based Loita Development Foundation.

Gabriel Turasha, field veterinary coordinator for VSF-G said, ‘The demand for this vaccine was evident from the farmers’ actions. What we needed to prove – to the authorities restricting its use – was that the vaccine was safe, effective and a superior alternative to the East Coast fever control strategy already being used in Kenya .’

Armed with scientific evidence, the collaboration successfully lobbied the Kenyan government and then facilitated local production and local access to the vaccine. Three vaccine distribution centres have been established in Kenya and more than 10,000 calves vaccinated.

John McDermott, ILRI’s deputy director general of research, said, ‘This collaboration illustrates how the research from “discovery to delivery” can be facilitated by collaboration between research institutes, which are in the business of doing science, and development partners, which are in the business of on-the-ground delivery. This has been a great success story—and a great win for Kenya ’s pastoralists.’

This innovative collaboration has been selected as a finalist in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) ‘Innovation Marketplace Awards’. These awards recognize outstanding collaborative efforts among CGIAR-supported centres and civil society organizations. Four winners will be announced at the CGIAR’s Annual General Meeting, to be held in Washington, DC , in December 2006.

Carlos Seré, director general of ILRI, said, ‘We are delighted to learn that this partnership has received recognition. ILRI is involved in a host of innovative collaborations and continues to seek new partners—from civil society organizations to the private sector to local research institutions—to help us deliver on our promises to poor livestock keepers in developing countries.’

ollaborative Team Brings Vaccine against Deadly Cattle Disease to Poor Pastrolists for the First Time

Related Articles on Innovation Collaborations
ILRI recently collaborated with VSF-Belgium, VSF-Switzerland and two Italian NGOs in an Emergency Drought Response Program in Kenya.

VSF, ILRI, Italian NGOs, and Kenya Collaborate to Mitigate the Effects of Drought in Northern Kenya

The ILRI collaborative effort described in this Top Story was featured in the Journal of International Development (July 2005) as an example of a ‘potentially new model of research and development partnership’ with a more ‘complete’ approach to innovation.

 

Further Information
VSF-Germany is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization engaged in veterinary relief and development work. VSF-Germany's primary role involves the control and prevention of epidemics; the establishment of basic veterinarian services and para-veterinarian programs with high involvement of local people; the improvement of animal health, especially among agriculturally useful animals; food security through increases in the production of animal-based food and non-food products; and the reduction of animal diseases that are transferable to humans. VSF-Germany carries out emergency as well as development operations. The organization's area of operation is East Africa.

Website: http://www.vsfg.org/eng.php

New tools to improve utilisation of farm animal genetic resources in developing countries

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The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has recently launched important new information and training resources designed to improve utilisation of the full spectrum of animal genetic resources available in developing countries.


 improve utilisation of farm animal genetic resources
DAGRIS project team leader Tadelle Dessie among cattle in the Ghibe Valley of southwestern Ethiopia.

Throughout the developing world, rapidly increasing populations and changing lifestyles will continue to cause massive increases in demand for foods of animal origin. Key to meeting that demand – and to preventing widespread hunger and malnutrition – are the unique genetic resources found in thousands of locally adapted indigenous breeds of livestock. However, lack of accessible information on these breeds and a shortage of teachers and researchers specialising in animal genetic resources are currently major constraints. The result: in developing countries very few people are appropriately trained in animal breeding and genetics and many genetic conservation and livestock improvement programmes are unsuccessful; globally, a third of the world’s 5,000 breeds of livestock are at high risk of extinction and more than 700 have already been lost.
 
The Domestic Animal Genetic Resources Information System (DAGRIS) is a database which aims to assemble and make readily available in the public domain information – drawn from both formal publications as well as the ‘grey’ literature – on the origin, distribution, diversity, use and status of local breeds. Starting with African breeds of cattle, sheep and goats and recently adding pigs and chicken from Africa and Asia, it hopes to eventually expand its coverage to include geese, ducks and turkeys and also Latin America and the Caribbean. To further enhance capacity at the national level, ‘Country DAGRIS’ will also be established with local partners supported by ILRI to better meet their specific research and development needs. DAGRIS is available both on-line and via CD-ROM, and will be regularly updated as more information becomes available. Click here for a two page brief on DAGRIS.

The Animal Genetics Training Resource (AGTR) is a unique, ‘one-stop’, user-friendly, interactive, multimedia resource, targeted at both researchers and scientists teaching and supervising graduate and post-graduate students in animal breeding and genetics. It consists of core modules, case studies from developing countries, exercises, tools, a library and has links to many other information sources on and related to animal genetic resources, including DAGRIS. It covers established as well as rapidly developing areas, such as gene-based technologies and their application in livestock breeding programmes. Today’s university students are tomorrow’s researchers, lecturers, animal breeders and policy makers: by increasing the capacity of their teachers, AGTR aims to better equip them to rise to the challenge of effectively utilising indigenous animal genetic resources to achieve sustainable food and nutritional security.

For more information visit dagris.ilri.cgiar.org  and agtr.ilri.cgiar.org.

The promise of science for development

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Doherty Lecture by Dame Bridget Ogilvie urges Africa not to follow Britain’s example but rather to help its science and scientists to flourish.

The brain drain can be stopped and redressed in Britain as well as Africa. But two things must happen: one, governments must do more to create an environment where science can flourish; two, scientists and technicians must be nurtured, developed and rewarded for their talents and contributions.

This was the key message of Dame Bridget Ogilvie who delivered the Peter Doherty Distinguished Lecture on 24 November 2004, at the Nairobi headquarters of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

Doherty Lecture Announcement Poster

Dame Bridget emphasized the importance of people development and career development in research institutes. She placed great importance on training and developing the scientists and graduates who do the work. The success of any research institute is dependent on the expertise of staff.

‘My first and my most important message to anyone interested in accelerating scientific innovation is the need to ensure that the appropriately trained, talented and supported workforce is available as nothing can happen without it.  My experience suggests that this is neither easy nor cheap to achieve, but it is essential.’

She recalled her work at the Wellcome Trust, which she directed from 1991 to 1998, and how difficult it was to entice veterinary graduates into research. Salary differentials of academic and practicing scientists created further challenges, so polices were introduced to increase salaries of the academics to stem any brain-drain. The UK has already witnessed this, and she urged Africans to learn from these mistakes and take proactive stops to nurture their intellectual capital.

In closing, Dame Bridget said: ‘The extraordinary scientific revolution…..will continue to bring great benefits to the public.  However, this will occur where governments not only provide the funds that are necessary but also exhibit leadership by providing the regulatory, social, fiscal and working conditions that make a nation an attractive place in which scientists and the innovative industries that depend on them can function well.’

ILRI’s Distinguished Lecture series is named after Australian Peter Doherty, 1996 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology, who from 1986 to 1992 chaired the program committee of the board of trustees of ILRI’s predecessor, the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD).
Dame Ogilvie’s lecture is now available as a book, The Promise of Science for Development.

The electronic version is available in PDF format.


Printed copies are available from ILRI’s Addis and Nairobi InfoCentres: Requests can be made to InfoCentre Team

ILRI in Southern Africa

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ILRI’s director general and new representative for Southern Africa visit the region to consult with partner organizations and get an update on work of the NEPAD and its establishment of regional African biosciences centres of excellence.

ILRI’s director general, Carlos Seré, and new representative for Southern Africa, Siboniso Moyo, visited Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe in early March 2006 to meet development partners in the region, including public- and private-sector organizations, non-governmental organizations, the secretariats of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and regional offices of other centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), to which ILRI belongs.

ILRI’s new representative in Southern Africa, Siboniso Moyo, called ‘Boni’, joined ILRI in February 2006. She will be based in Maputo, Mozambique. She is an animal scientist graduate of the University of Pretoria and has spent the last 21 years doing livestock research in Zimbabwe and the region.

On their mission, Moyo and ILRI Director General Seré met with John Mugabe, Executive Secretary of NEPAD’s Science and Technology Forum, and Aggrey Ambali, Coordinator of NEPAD’s African Biosciences Initiative, in Pretoria, South Africa. NEPAD’s African Biosciences Initiative, conducted under the NEPAD Science and Technology Programme, is establishing regional networks of centres of excellence comprising hubs and nodes.

Describing the purpose of their mission, Carlos Seré explained that ILRI plans to engage actively in the region’s science and technology agenda for agricultural research. He updated his NEPAD colleagues on the first NEPAD-initiated biosciences centre of excellence to be established, known as Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) and based at ILRI’s laboratories, in Nairobi, Kenya. BecA’s new Network Director, Bruno Kubata, has been on the ground for 100 days, Seré reported, and is working to finalize the BecA implementation plan, with the view to implementing the Network’s research agenda at the BecA hub and nodes from mid-2006.

NEPAD’s John Mugabe said ILRI’s presence in the southern Africa region is welcome. He reported that all the NEPAD-initiated biosciences hubs, and their accompanying networks, are now in place. Besides BecA, based at ILRI’s headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, and encompassing biosciences nodes throughout eastern and central Africa, there are now three others established: one in Alexandria, Egypt for North Africa, a second in Dakar, Senegal, for West Africa, and a third based at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in Pretoria, South Africa, for southern Africa. Mugabe said staff at all four hubs of these biosciences centres of excellence now need to develop links with each other and to exchange information.

The ILRI team also met with NEPAD’s Agricultural Advisor, Richard Mkandawire. ILRI’s Seré explained that a series of regional consultations were in progress in regard to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). The main goal of CAADP, NEPAD’s Mkandawire explained, is to help African countries reach a higher level of economic growth through agriculturally led development that eliminates hunger, reduces poverty and food insecurity, and enables expansion of exports. A road map for achieving this has been developed by the NEPAD Secretariat to coordinate and facilitate the transition from framework to country-level implementation of the CAADP Agenda. The country-level implementation process seeks to align national agricultural sector policies, strategies and investment programmes with CAADP principles, facilitate better partnerships and alliances, facilitate reliable tracking of the level and efficiency of public-sector investments (target-10%) and growth rate (target-6%) of the sector. It is important, Mkandawire said, that the livestock agenda is tabled during the country round table discussions. CAADP’s technical arm is the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), an umbrella organization bringing together stakeholders in agricultural research and development in Africa with a secretariat in Accra, Ghana.