The research excellence of The Pirbright Institute, which has helped to eradicate some of the world’s most damaging livestock diseases, is highlighted in a centenary review.
Published to mark the founding of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) in 1924, the special edition of the Scientific and Technical Review showcases Pirbright’s role in helping to advance a ‘One Health’ approach to sustainably balance and optimise the health of people, animals and ecosystems.
Providing perspectives on initiatives to combat transboundary infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, the issue also examines animal welfare, wildlife and the importance of aquatic animal health.
Pirbright is mentioned throughout, notably for contributions to the control of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) by the late John Brooksby and Fred Brown.
Professor Brooksby, who directed the Institute for 16 years, was an outstanding veterinary virologist who identified four of the seven types of FMD virus (FMDV) and many subtypes. These advances provided the impetus for the designation of the Institute as the World Reference Laboratory for FMD in 1958.
Professor Brown was an eminent molecular virologist who joined Pirbright in 1955 and became deputy director of the Institute. Advances under his leadership included the use of aziridines as inactivating agents for vaccine production and working with Professor Dave Stuart to solve the atomic structure of FMDV.
Looking to the future, the edition also features an article examining the availability of knowledge, tools and resources to control FMD from Dr Donald King, in collaboration with colleagues from WOAH and the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Dr King leads the WOAH Reference Laboratory for FMD and the FAO World Reference Laboratory for FMD (WRLFMD).
And the global challenge of reaching a world free of the highly pathogenic rinderpest and peste des petits ruminants (PPR) viruses is reviewed by Pirbright and WOAH expert Dr Michael Baron, co-authored with Arnaud Bataille, a fellow WOAH expert on PPR who heads the EU Reference Laboratory for PPR in France.
Welcoming the publication, Institute Director, Professor Bryan Charleston MRCVS FRS, said: “Celebrating our success in tackling FMD and rinderpest, the centenary review captures a few of the many outstanding contributions to global scientific knowledge made by Pirbright researchers since the Institute was founded back in 1914.”
In the preface to the review, guest scientific editor Professor Thomas C. Mettenleiter, President (retd) of Germany’s Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, says: “One hundred years after its founding, WOAH’s activities are still essential in setting standards in animal health and beyond. As a major champion of the One Health approach, WOAH enters the next century of its existence proud of its past successes, but also ready to take on the many challenges that lie ahead.”
Read the review
100 years - Scientific & Technical Review Special Edition. Rev. Sci. Tech. Scientific & Technical Review. (2024). https://doi.org/10.20506/rst.issue.SE.3551
Donaldson, A.I., Rowlands, D.J., Garland, A.J.M. & Rweyemamu, M.M. (2024) An appreciation of the seminal contributions of John Brooksby and Fred Brown on foot and mouth disease. Scientific & Technical Review 01: 17-23. https://doi.org/10.20506/rst.SE.3554.
King, D.P., McLaws, M., Mapiste, N.J. & Paton, D.J. (2024) Are the knowledge, tools and resources to control foot and mouth disease available? Scientific & Technical Review 01: 24-35. https://doi.org/10.20506/rst.SE.3555
Bataille, A. & Baron, M.D (2024) Rinderpest and peste des petits ruminants: state of play in disease eradication efforts. Scientific & Technical Review 01: 43-52. https://doi.org/10.20506/rst.SE.3557
