A new vaccine to help crack down on rates of bovine respiratory disease in feedlots may only be a couple of years away.
Researchers from the University of Queensland's Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation have been working on the vaccine over the last 20 years.
Now their prototype vaccine is set to be transferred to a commercial partner for further development with the hopes of helping to curb BRD's up to $100 million a year impact on lotfeeders.
Professor Tim Mahony, who has been leading the research, said one of the challenges faced in developing the vaccine has been the need for something that works relatively quickly.
"The model that we work on for BRD development is that the cattle come into feedlots and they are subjected to a whole lot of new conditions such as diet, " he said.
"That probably causes them stress and for some cattle affects their immune system and as they're exposed to other animals, they contract a virus.
"For some cattle their immune system isn't working as well as what it could be and they develop a secondary lung infection.
"This all happens in the first two to three weeks while they're in the feedlot.
"For most feedlot animals we've got to be able to protect this animal in a very short period of time."
For that reason, researchers worked to develop a live vaccine, whereby the animal is exposed to a weakened strain of the virus.
They developed a vaccine platform capable of targeting multiple pathogens at once, based on the fact that BRD can be caused by a number of different viruses.
Traditionally to test the effectiveness of new vaccines, experiments have required large numbers of animals to determine if the vaccine is effective.
But Professor Mahony and his team developed the dual pathogen challenge model, a technique testing the effectiveness of the vaccine by accentuating clinical signs severity in unvaccinated versus vaccinated individuals.
Because the model lacks the stress component that's part of BRD development, trial animals develop a disease that allows testing of vaccine efficacy, without putting them at risk of severe disease.
While the identity of the commercial partner still cannot be revealed, Professor Mahony said he anticipated they would be eager to get the vaccine on the market.
"I would think they would be hoping we would be conducting pen trials in 12 to 18 months, then they would go on to field trials," he said.
"I would think they would be looking at having it available in a couple of years."
