First Round of UCD2 Funding
In 2018, following the establishment of the UCD2 Transatlantic One Health Alliance, the first funding call was circulated. Applicants were encouraged to submit funding applications for innovative and sustainable programs built around collaborative research initiatives linking UC Dublin and UC Davis. Ultimately, four submissions covering a broad range of critical One Health topics were funded.
Antimicrobial Resistance
Professor Finola Leonard, School of Veterinary Medicine, UCD, and Professor Beatirz Martinez-Lopez, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis, led a project titled ‘Evaluation and mapping of the acquisition rates, persistence and spatio-temporal patterns of antimicrobial resistance in veterinarians/animal research workers and their environment: the UCD2-resistome project’.
Their central hypothesis is that AMR emergence, persistence and spread at the animal/environment/human interface is significantly affected by temporal and spatial variation in AMU, husbandry practices, human behaviours as well as management and environmental factors. The project aims to develop this spatio-temporal context in veterinarians and other workers in close contact with animals by tracking at fine spatio-temporal scale the effects of exposure to high-risk environments using a longitudinal One-Health approach.
Co-investigators on the project are Dr. Edgar Garcia Manzanilla, Teagasc and School of Veterinary Medicine, UCD, and Dr. Maurice Pitesky, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis.
Vaccines
Verotoxigenic Escherichia coli (VTEC) are foodborne pathogens which cause severe bloody diarrhoea. Children under five are most at risk and there are currently no vaccines available to protect them. Cattle are one of the most important sources of VTEC – improperly cooked meat and contaminated raw fresh produce or water are frequent sources of human infection.
Professor Siobhán McClean, School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD, and Professor Sharif Aly, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis have joined forces with their project ‘Development of a prophylactic vaccine against VTEC – a One Health approach’.
Professor McClean and her team have developed a proteomic platform to identify bacterial proteins involved in host cell attachment. Using this technology, they have identified seven VTEC-specific antigens involved in the attachment to human gastrointestinal epithelial cells. Professor Aly’s team, experts in dairy cattle production medicine, epidemiology, VTEC infection, and molecular microbiology, will inoculate a UC Davis dairy herd with these antigens that they hypothesize will prevent VTEC colonization in the cattle.
Working with the team in UCD are Co-investigator Assistant Professor Catherine McAloon, School of Veterinary Medicine, and Conor Quinn, a PhD student in the McClean lab. In UC Davis, co-investigator Dr. Emmanuel Okello, School of Veterinary Medicine will also contribute to the project.
Zoonosis
Human pathogenic flaviviruses transmitted by mosquitoes are spreading globally and frequently emerging in new areas. For example, Usutu virus (USUV) and St. Louis encephalitis virus (SLEV), are emerging to cause human and animal disease in Europe and California, respectively. These viruses have been reported to co-circulate with other flavivirus such as West Nile Virus (WNV) that shares the same mosquito vector, Culex pipiens.
Genome variation of USUV or SLEV may influence the diseases they cause, the species they impact, and their transmission competence in the vector species they use. However, Professor Lark Coffey, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis, and Professor Gerald Barry, School of Veterinary Medicine, note that the ability to predict these factors based on genetic sequence data is limited for these viruses and other flaviviruses.
For their project ‘Viral molecular determinants of pathogenic mosquito-borne virus emergence: Usutu virus in Europe and St. Louis encephalitis virus in California’ they hypothesize that emergence of USUV and SLEV is mediated by species-specific virus-host interactions and increased transmission competence by mosquitoes.
Food Safety
The fourth funded project in this series focuses on the highly significant food-borne pathogenic bacteria Campylobacter jejuni. Professor Tadhg Ó'Cróinín, School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD has aligned with Professor Bart Weimer on the 'Campylobacter Alliance for Food Safety and Nutrition'. They work alongside co-investigators Professor Marguerite Clyne, School of Medicine, UCD and Professor Barbara Byrne, Dr. Terra Kelly and Dr. Jennifer Lane, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis.