[urban rednek]

However, the cynic in me has some questions that this 10 minute video doesn't answer.
Are they funding new research, or continuing research that has been going on since 2008? Have PrioNet Canada, AEP, APRI, NIH, Genome Canada/ Genome Alberta, NSERC, and Margaret Gunn Endowment for Animal Research stopped funding their existing projects with the UofS, UBC, UofA, and UofC?
Is this a way for AEP to offload the research costs to the ACA so they can shuffle their funds into another area of their budget?

https://www.agcanada.com/daily/resea...vaccine-funded

Posted May. 7th, 2008 by FBC Staff


Development of a BSE vaccine for cattle, and a mathematical study of the risk to people who eat meat from BSE-infected cattle, are up for PrioNet Canada funding, the research network announced Wednesday.

PrioNet Canada, which is funded by the federally-backed Networks of Centres of Excellence Canada, announced $8 million in funding for 19 research projects involving 60 researchers across the country.

The network supports research on various aspects of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy family of diseases, which includes BSE (a.k.a. mad cow disease) in cattle, scrapie in sheep, chronic wasting disease (CWD) in elk and deer and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people.

“PrioNet’s research will bolster the knowledge base required to predict and manage the deadly impacts of prion diseases,” said PrioNet scientific director Neil Cashman of the University of British Columbia in a press release Wednesday.

Among the projects funded are work at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) on a vaccine for cattle against BSE, using Cashman’s finding of an antibody-binding site on the prion — the misshaped protein that causes TSEs to develop in the nervous system.

Andrew Potter will lead VIDO’s research project. PrioNet said a BSE vaccine would not only provide the first preventative treatment against the disease but would save Canada considerable money on its current BSE testing regime and could help lead to other TSE vaccines.

Risk and perceived risk

Funding will also go to two related studies at the University of Ottawa, one using mathematical models and surveys to work out the actual risk of Canadians contracting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) when exposed to products made from BSE-infected cattle. Daniel Krewski’s team will also look at the probability of human-to-human vCJD transmission through blood transfusions and surgery.

In a related project, an Ottawa team led by Michael Tyshenko will examine the risk of vCJD transmission through transplantation procedures, some of which use artificially grown cells using cattle tissues at high risk of harbouring BSE.

Another study moves from risk to the perception of risk: a team led by Tomas Nilsson at the University of Alberta will examine the level of BSE testing needed to ensure consumer confidence in Canadian food products.

Nilsson’s study aims to use a “farm to fork” strategy to trace confidence along the food chain of animal products, along with assessment of the “political economy,” PrioNet wrote. The study will also look at consumer response related to voluntary and/or mandatory BSE testing, with the goal of better targetiung public policy on BSE.

CWD

Also receiving funding will be Canada’s largest project on CWD in wild deer, in which a University of Saskatchewan team led by Trent Bollinger will develop data on the movement patterns of wild deer, with an eye on the effects of deer culling and feed supplements on the transmission of CWD.

“To date, culling infected herds has been the main practice to help stop the spread of CWD; however, such efforts have not been successful,” PrioNet wrote in its release.

“In addition, the persistent spread of CWD in wild deer leads to increased transmission risks to other species, like moose, or even humans. Particular at-risk groups include hunters, outfitters and aboriginals that may consume CWD-infected wild deer as food.”

https://www.ucalgary.ca/news/ucalgar...nd-potentially

July 19, 2021 Author
Collene Ferguson, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

UCalgary researchers at work on a vaccine against a fatal infectious disease affecting deer and potentially people
Vaccine effort timely as chronic wasting disease ‘explodes’ in deer populations

an an infectious and deadly prion disease of deer and elk jump species and infect humans?

New research by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM) indicates that’s a real likelihood.

“Our new data show that there is the potential for chronic wasting disease (CWD) to infect people,” says Dr. Hermann Schaetzl, MD, PhD, professor of prion biology and immunology and associate dean, research at UCVM. “Whether it already has happened, there's no data, but the more CWD prions you have out there in the environment, the higher the risk that human infections will occur in the future.
Disease rapidly spreading

And there’s a lot of CWD in the environment. It’s killing deer in Alberta and Saskatchewan and rapidly spreading north, putting already endangered woodland caribou at greater risk. Westward expansion into the Rocky Mountains endangers elk, deer, moose and woodland caribou in Banff and Jasper National Parks.

“CWD is really exploding. In the last year, as many new cases were detected in one hunting season as in the previous 15 years altogether.” says Dr. Sabine Gilch, PhD, associate professor at UCVM and Canada Research Chair in Prion Disease Research. CWD can remain active in carcasses, saliva, and feces of infected animals and elsewhere in the environment for many years, leading to further infection of animals.

CWD is one of a group of infectious illnesses called prion diseases. One of the best-known prion diseases is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. They occur when normal prion proteins, found on the surface of many cells, become abnormal and clump in the brain, causing brain damage and eventually death.

Findings suggest risk to humans

“Prion diseases are known in humans. Previous studies have indicated the probability of CWD to transmit to humans to be very low, but now we have generated newer data in a study where CWD was transmitted to Macaque monkeys. Macaques are very similar to humans, they're currently the best model for testing zoonotic potential of prions,” says Gilch.

These new findings confirming people might be at risk of CWD make another UCVM research project evaluating an oral CWD vaccination strategy more crucial than ever.

“Work with the vaccine is going really well,” says Schaetzl. “We’re collaborating with a few groups including University of Alberta, Colorado State University and VIDO (Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan) and we have different approaches that are looking good in our animal models.”

The vaccine doesn’t prevent the disease, but it delays its onset. Which is a significant factor in reducing the rapid spread of CWD.

“There's a pretty concerted research and funding effort now. And we're not putting our money on one vaccine, it's two or three vaccines and we have to produce them in an amount, in a packaging form, which allows us to do this oral vaccination in the wildlife,” says Schaetzl. “Three years ago, there was less support for the vaccination strategy, but that’s changed with COVID. Everybody's so much more in favor of vaccines now. We’re still a few years away and the vaccine will not be 100 percent effective, but it will do the job over time.”

Funding sources for these projects include Alberta Environment and Parks, Alberta Prion Research Institute (APRI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Genome Canada/Genome Alberta, NSERC, and Margaret Gunn Endowment for Animal Research.

Hermann Schaetzl is a member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and the Snyder Institute

Sabine Gilch is an adjunct member of Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Cumming School of Medicine.