ON FARM NATIONAL Taking on Potential parthenium footrot vaccine Weed: Parthenium hysterophorus, also candidates known as bitter-broom, carrot grass, congress grass, false camomile or false ragweed. Anovel approach has led Professor Richard Wittington, was Where it grows: Well-established in Australian researchers productive, according to Julian. central and northern Queensland and to five potential footrot “Monash University has done the spreading into southern Queensland vaccine candidates. genomic and protein work, while and northern NSW. the University of Sydney has A serious disease in sheep, ovine Damage and threats: Toxic to stock, footrot causes severe economic done the vaccine work,” he said. parthenium is a major problem in loss, suffering due to lameness In the process of finding potential Queensland rangelands and summer and disruption to normal farm vaccine candidates, Julian cropping areas, costing landholders more operations. The economic losses said his University of Sydney than $22 million/year in production losses result from reduced body weight colleagues had refined a field- and management costs. Its pollen contains and growth, decreased wool based testing system. allergens that can cause dermatitis, hay production and restrictions to fever and asthma. marketing opportunities. “An important development was a reproducible, irrigated, Present control: Well-timed herbicide In an MLA-funded collaborative pasture-based, natural infection applications to control small plants and research project between model. It’s been used to test the follow-up to control future germinations. Monash University and the effectiveness of vaccines in the Maintaining pastures in good condition with University of Sydney, reverse field,” he said. high levels of grass crown cover will help. vaccinology, a concept successfully used for human Julian said the next question is: Challenges: Spread easily by feral and “‘Do we have preliminary data that native animals, parthenium can germinate, disease, was employed. suggests we should continue?’ We grow, mature and set seed within four weeks. Professor Julian Rood from the think so, since we have identified Biocontrol solution: Nine insect species Monash Biomedicine Discovery five potential vaccine candidates.” and two rusts have been released. Institute said the concept is basedThe research team hopes to on determining the complete move on to the next step shortly, genome sequence of the which involves further testing causative organism; in this case, and refinement of vaccine the bacterium Dichelobacter formulations. nodosus, and then using that sequence to identify its proteins. Professor Julian Rood From 1,300 potential proteins, E: julian.rood@monash.edu researchers narrowed that list down to about 90 proteins with potential as vaccine antigens. RESEARCH IN Proteins were purified using REVIEW high-throughput technology and tested in pen-and-field PROJECT NAME vaccination trials for their ability Cross-reactive footrot vaccine to protect sheep against footrot. RESEARCH Julian said one of the problems ORGANISATIONS with conventional footrot vaccines Monash University and is that there are 10 variants of the University of Sydney major protective antigen. FUNDING ORGANISATIONS “So if you vaccinate against one, MLA it doesn’t protect the sheep GOAL against the other nine. What we’re Vaccine candidates for trying to develop is a vaccine that footrot disease is cross-protective – one that will work against all isolates of the BUDGET causative bacterium,” he said. $940,492 The collaboration, which included DURATION Monash University’s Dr Ruth 2013–2018 Kennan and University of Sydney’s Dr Om Dhungyel and 35