Page 21 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

and E. ruminantium coding for antigenic activity, as well as for the construction of antibody libraries which could serve as a source of specific antibodies for use in diagnostic tests. He also evaluated the potential of nucleic acid vaccines, using the cloned gene for AHSV protein VP2. Both the phage display and recombinant technologies attracted much attention and also financial support from external sources such as the Innovation Fund. Van Kleef was mainly responsible for the work on heartwater, which was later transferred to the heartwater programme of which she became manager when Basil Allsopp moved to the Veterinary Faculty in 2003. The serious financial crisis facing the Insti- tute at the beginning of the 21st century, and the concomitant loss of key senior staff as discussed in Part 1, also had a disruptive effect on the sections and programmes under discussion.
In 2001 van Dijk left for Australia and Viljoen accepted a senior position with the International Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna, Austria. Van Dijk was succeeded by O. (Otto) Koekemoer while Romito was appointed as acting head of Applied Biotechnology. In 2004 the latter was replaced by P. (Phelix) Majiwa. Research had become totally dependant on external funding, in terms of contracts, services or competitive bidding for grants. Neverthe- less, those programmes that managed to survive continued making useful contribu- tions, including the training of new staff, mainly from previously disadvantaged groups. This process was accelerated by funding supplied by the Department of Science and Technology for bursaries and for the remuneration of mentors.
Several senior researchers of the OVI
were appointed on a part-time basis at the
Veterinary Faculty to facilitate mentoring.
These initiatives contributed to greatly ex-
tended collaboration between the Institute
and the Faculty, and in 2003 a BioPAD grant
was awarded for an integrated program-
me on the development of diagnostic reagents for theilerio- sis. Collins, who moved to the Faculty in 2003, worked on this project and adapted the original Theileria test for use in the latest real-time PCR machines, which deliver a faster, more specific and more sensitive result. This new test was also applied to an extensive study of the relationship between various Theileria isolates around the country.
ONDERSTEPOORT 100
The heartwater programme also conti- nued as a collaborative study, yielding important results on the genetic varia- bility of E. ruminantium and making the remarkable discovery that different genotypes of this intracellular organism somehow manage to undergo extensive recombination with one another. These findings had important implications for diagnostic tests for heartwater, also now adapted to a real-time PCR format, and for vaccine development. The original four-gene DNA vaccine underwent extensive testing from 2000 onwards, and although it is highly effective in the laboratory, it offers only partial protection against natural tick challenge under field conditions. This is partly a result of genetic variability and recombination of the organism in the field, and partly because a natural tick challenge is both quantitatively and qualitatively far more virulent than a needle challenge in the laboratory.
From 2005 the complete genome data allowed a more rational selection of genes with potential for vaccine production, and several were identified which coded for proteins which stimulate T-lymphocyte proliferation and interferon production, and which may thus code for protection- stimulating proteins. Vaccine trials of these genes continued but this is a long and expensive process which will not be completed by 2008, i.e. the centenary of the Institute. Zweygarth has also developed an attenuated strain of E. ruminantium with excellent vaccine potential, and the genome sequence of this strain began to be determined in 2007 in order to identify the genes responsible for the loss of viru- lence. The extended collaboration between the Institute and the Faculty from 2003 onwards led, in 2007, to their recognition by the National Research Foundation (NRF) as a joint special Research Niche Area for molecular studies of animal diseases, under the leadership of Basil Allsopp, J. (Jacques) Godfroid, van Kleef and M. (Marinda)
Oosthuizen. This opens the way to further preferential funding from the NRF which will be used to consolidate the cooperative theileriosis and heartwater research programmes, among others.
In the other disciplines under discussion, research during the last years of the OVI’s first century was essentially a continuation of established programmes rather than inno-
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Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Biotechnoly and Immunochemistry
1908-2008
Years