Five jointly-funded research awards, drawing more than £2.3 million from UK funds and $2.3m from the US have been announced in support of “high impact diseases and animal health issues” as addressed by the US/UK collaborative animal health and disease and veterinary immune reagents programme.
The UK money is being provided through the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) while the US funding is channelled through the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).
“These grants enable an international research partnership that looks to control the spread of pathogens, ensuring we can effectively reduce the health risks and environmental impacts on food production worldwide,” said NIFA director, Sonny Ramaswamy.
BBSRC deputy chief executive, Steve Visscher, added: “A growing world population means that safe and secure food supplies are going to become more and more important in the years to come. The scale of such challenges require increased international collaboration, and this partnership of co-investment between BBSRC and NIFA will allow world-leading researchers in both countries to work together to combat livestock diseases and safeguard food supplies.”
Joint funded awards in 2014 included collaboration between the University of Bristol and the USDA Agricultural Research Service, focusing on the development of a swine immune toolkit which embraced work on new immune reagents in relation to swine health, vaccination and disease studies.