Agriculture Groups Urge USDA to Quickly Establish Foot-and-Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank

Representatives of the National Pork Producers Council, the National Milk Producers Federation, the National Corn Growers Association and Iowa State University today called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to move as quickly as possible to establish a Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccine bank.

At a press conference today, these groups recognized the steps USDA has taken to establish the bank, but called for expedient use of mandatory funding included in the 2018 Farm Bill to purchase the volume of vaccines required to effectively contain and eradicate an FMD outbreak. Currently, the USDA, which has prescribed vaccination for dealing with an FMD outbreak, does not have access to...

Phibro Animal Health Corporation Announces a Significant Advance in the Development of ASF Vaccine

Phibro Animal Health Corporation (NASDAQ:PAHC) today announced it is pursuing patent protection following a significant advance in the on-going development of a vaccine for African Swine Fever (ASF). This important step in the vaccine development process involves the identification of immunogenic epitopes and proteins that show strong potential to form the basis for a vaccine against ASF.

Phibro’s R&D team and its collaborators made this identification through the use of a unique bioinformatics analysis tool in order to select...

Vaccine Investigators Use Bacterium's Own Protein Against It

A team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and university scientists is investigating a new “ingredient” for use in vaccinating cattle against Johne’s disease, a chronic wasting affliction that costs the U.S. dairy industry more than $200 million per year.

The ingredient in question is a type of protein on the surface of the bacterium Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), which causes Johne’s disease.

The researchers found that the protein, dubbed 35 kDa membrane peptide, helps the bacterium invade epithelial cells lining the cow's small intestine, thickening it and blocking the uptake of nutrients from feed or forage. This can lead to diarrhea, weight loss, diminished milk production and sometimes death. Calves are especially vulnerable and if their mothers are infected, they can acquire the bacterium from...