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Department of Veterinary Medicine

Cambridge Veterinary School
 
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Termly seminar programme
Updated: 5 min 48 sec ago

Thu 11 May 16:00: One Health In Action in the Caribbean

Mon, 20/03/2023 - 14:52
One Health In Action in the Caribbean

Chris is a Professor of Veterinary Virology at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of the West Indies (UWI) in Trinidad and Tobago. He took up his post at the University of the West Indies in early 2012 and is currently running a One Health – based research programme. He has recently received the UWI Vice Chancellor award for research, is a member of the UWI Covid-19 taskforce and is a member of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Biological Standards Commission.

Talk summary: Chris will talk about the work he has been doing promoting the One Health approach across the Caribbean region. There has been a growing consensus that a One Health approach is necessary to address many of the health and development issues of today. His presentation will outline actions being taken to roll out the One Health approach to health challenges faced within the Caribbean, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and building partnerships. The presentation will describe two European Union funded projects that Chris has led. The “One Health One Caribbean One Love” and ‘Climate Change and One Health’ projects are example of ‘One Health in Action’. Both project are developing cohorts / networks of Caribbean professionals with the knowledge and skills to become change agents in their respective fields.

Chaired by Professor James Wood

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Thu 11 May 16:00: One Health In Action in the Caribbean

Mon, 20/03/2023 - 11:22
One Health In Action in the Caribbean

Chris will talk about the work he has been doing promoting the One Health approach across the Caribbean region. There has been a growing consensus that a One Health approach is necessary to address many of the health and development issues of today. His presentation will outline actions being taken to roll out the One Health approach to health challenges faced within the Caribbean, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and building partnerships. The presentation will describe two European Union funded projects that Chris has led. The “One Health One Caribbean One Love” and ‘Climate Change and One Health’ projects are example of ‘One Health in Action’. Both project are developing cohorts / networks of Caribbean professionals with the knowledge and skills to become change agents in their respective fields.

Chaired by Professor James Wood

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Wed 24 May 13:00: Gene-based vaccines to combat bacterial diseases, hurdles and opportunities’ Canceled - to be re-scheduled

Thu, 16/03/2023 - 15:56
Gene-based vaccines to combat bacterial diseases, hurdles and opportunities’

With the recent success of adenoviral vaccines against Ebola and SARS -CoV-2, the potential of this platform in the fight against outbreak pathogens is being realised. This technology has proven impact in high income countries and is also suitable for large scale manufacture and use in low-and-middle income countries, as demonstrated by the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against SARS -CoV-2. The potential of viral-vectors to induce T Helper type 1 and high antibody responses in humans makes the use of this approach attractive in efforts to combat the disease and disability caused by bacterial pathogens. However, the case for their use in bacterial vaccines is less clear: the expression of a bacterial protein in a eukaryotic cell may impact on the antigen localization, induce unwanted glycosylation or affect protein conformation, and this is also true if using the mRNA vaccine platform. The potential and challenges of adenoviral vectors was explored against two bacterial diseases, capsular group B meningococcus and the plague. While all antigens and combinations were able to induce high antibody responses after a single dose immunisation in mice, not all were able to induce functional antibodies. We show that a subset of outer membrane proteins from Gram-negative bacteria can be incorporated into gene-based vectors for novel vaccine development. While our work highlights the challenges inherent in developing novel vaccines using this technology and can be applied to mRNA, the successful progression of two novel bacterial vaccines to clinical development underlines the potential of these platforms for vaccine development against bacterial diseases.

Canceled - to be re-scheduled

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Wed 08 Mar 16:00: Optical monitoring of cerebral metabolism: from seizures to dogs Re-scheduled!

Wed, 01/03/2023 - 17:07
Optical monitoring of cerebral metabolism: from seizures to dogs

I develop wearable, non-invasive optical brain monitoring tools based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to measure brain oxygenation and metabolism in places where conventional brain imaging isn’t possible. In this talk, I will present some of the applications of this technique, focussing on neonatal seizures and canine neuroscience, covering the engineering challenges and future directions of wearable brain imaging in naturalistic environments.

Re-scheduled!

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Tue 16 May 11:30: Real-time Genomics and One Health – The River Cam and novel pathogen surveillance technology

Mon, 13/02/2023 - 12:28
Real-time Genomics and One Health – The River Cam and novel pathogen surveillance technology

Abstract not available

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Tue 21 Feb 13:00: Unravelling the whipworm niche at the host intestinal epithelia

Mon, 13/02/2023 - 10:30
Unravelling the whipworm niche at the host intestinal epithelia

Abstract not available

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Wed 05 Jul 13:00: Gene-based vaccines to combat bacterial diseases, hurdles and opportunities’ Canceled - to be re-scheduled

Tue, 07/02/2023 - 16:59
Gene-based vaccines to combat bacterial diseases, hurdles and opportunities’

With the recent success of adenoviral vaccines against Ebola and SARS -CoV-2, the potential of this platform in the fight against outbreak pathogens is being realised. This technology has proven impact in high income countries and is also suitable for large scale manufacture and use in low-and-middle income countries, as demonstrated by the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against SARS -CoV-2. The potential of viral-vectors to induce T Helper type 1 and high antibody responses in humans makes the use of this approach attractive in efforts to combat the disease and disability caused by bacterial pathogens. However, the case for their use in bacterial vaccines is less clear: the expression of a bacterial protein in a eukaryotic cell may impact on the antigen localization, induce unwanted glycosylation or affect protein conformation, and this is also true if using the mRNA vaccine platform. The potential and challenges of adenoviral vectors was explored against two bacterial diseases, capsular group B meningococcus and the plague. While all antigens and combinations were able to induce high antibody responses after a single dose immunisation in mice, not all were able to induce functional antibodies. We show that a subset of outer membrane proteins from Gram-negative bacteria can be incorporated into gene-based vectors for novel vaccine development. While our work highlights the challenges inherent in developing novel vaccines using this technology and can be applied to mRNA, the successful progression of two novel bacterial vaccines to clinical development underlines the potential of these platforms for vaccine development against bacterial diseases.

Canceled - to be re-scheduled

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Tue 16 May 11:30: Title to be confirmed

Tue, 07/02/2023 - 16:57
Title to be confirmed

Abstract not available

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Wed 03 May 16:00: Brain and Serum profile of the African Giant Rat brain (Cricetomys gambianus) after natural exposure to heavy metal environmental pollution in the Nigerian Niger Delta

Tue, 07/02/2023 - 16:53
Brain and Serum profile of the African Giant Rat brain (Cricetomys gambianus) after natural exposure to heavy metal environmental pollution in the Nigerian Niger Delta

Abstract Increased crude oil-based industrial exploitation in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria causes severe environmental contamination with heavy metal pollutants. There is little information on how these pollutants affect the nervous system of humans and animals in the region. This is a significant issue to address since human neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease of humans, and prion diseases of humans and animals are reported to be associated with changes in heavy metal content in the brain. The African Giant Rat is an ideal ecotoxicological research model to study the nervous system due to its exploratory activities and ubiquitous profile. Here we investigated the blood serum and brain pathology of African Giant Rats obtained from different regions/ecological zones of Nigeria that are subjected to different levels of industrial pollution: Ibadan (rainforest); Abuja (savannah with mining activities) and Port-Harcout (humid forest with crude oil exploration). This seminar will present data on the level of metal ions, including zinc, copper and iron, found in the serum and brain of African Giant Rats from these different regional locations and the extent of brain neurodegeneration in these animals. This novel and important study has been kindly supported by the Cambridge-Alborada Trust.

About the Speaker: Professor James Olukayode Olopade is currently the Principal Investigator of Alexander von Humboldt Center of Excellence for Zoonotic Arboviral Diseases (ACEZAD) and the Director of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. James graduated with the DVM degree in 1992 and obtained his MSc and PhD in 2003 and 2006, respectively, all from the University of Ibadan. James carried out postdoctoral training in Neurobiology at the Marine Biology Laboratory Woodshole, USA , in 2007 and in 2013 as a Grass Fellow; as an International Brain Research Organisation (IBRO) Fellow in Penn State University, USA in 2008, and as a MacArthur and Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, both at the University of Wurzburg, Germany from 2010 to 2011. His current research areas are in neuroscience and comparative anatomy. He has been funded by a variety of organisations including the International Society of Neurochemistry; the International Brain Research Organisation, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Nigeria, the University of Ibadan Research Foundation, and the Cambridge Alborada Grant amongst others. James has served as a member of the IBRO African Regional Committee; President of the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa; Special Editor of (Neuroscience in Africa) for IBRO Neuroscience Reports; and a Councillor of the International Society of Neurochemistry. Amongst his busy teaching and administrative load James has supervised over 20 postgraduate students.

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Tue 07 Feb 12:00: Contribution of pneumococci to the risk of developing pneumonia: The Drakenstein Child Health Study

Fri, 27/01/2023 - 16:21
Contribution of pneumococci to the risk of developing pneumonia: The Drakenstein Child Health Study

The contribution of pathogen genetic variation to the risk of developing lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) remains incompletely understood. We used genome wide association study (GWAS) cohort to examine the contribution of genetic variations to the risk of LRTI amongst African children enrolled in an intensively sampled birth cohort.

Bio Felix Dube is UK Royal Society & AAS Future Leader of African Independent Research (FLAIR) research fellow and lecturer in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He obtained his PhD from the University of Cape Town (Medical Microbiology), in 2016. His research focusses on the genomics and metagenomics for antimicrobial resistance surveillance and pathogen detection.

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Wed 03 May 16:00: Title to be confirmed

Thu, 12/01/2023 - 15:42
Title to be confirmed

Abstract not available

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Wed 01 Mar 16:00: Optical monitoring of cerebral metabolism: from seizures to dogs

Mon, 09/01/2023 - 15:35
Optical monitoring of cerebral metabolism: from seizures to dogs

I develop wearable, non-invasive optical brain monitoring tools based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to measure brain oxygenation and metabolism in places where conventional brain imaging isn’t possible. In this talk, I will present some of the applications of this technique, focussing on neonatal seizures and canine neuroscience, covering the engineering challenges and future directions of wearable brain imaging in naturalistic environments.

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Tue 10 Jan 16:00: Title to be confirmed

Wed, 21/12/2022 - 10:59
Title to be confirmed

Abstract not available

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Wed 01 Mar 16:00: Title to be confirmed

Wed, 21/12/2022 - 10:56
Title to be confirmed

Abstract not available

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Wed 08 Feb 13:00: Gene-based vaccines to combat bacterial diseases, hurdles and opportunities’

Mon, 19/12/2022 - 15:01
Gene-based vaccines to combat bacterial diseases, hurdles and opportunities’

With the recent success of adenoviral vaccines against Ebola and SARS -CoV-2, the potential of this platform in the fight against outbreak pathogens is being realised. This technology has proven impact in high income countries and is also suitable for large scale manufacture and use in low-and-middle income countries, as demonstrated by the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against SARS -CoV-2. The potential of viral-vectors to induce T Helper type 1 and high antibody responses in humans makes the use of this approach attractive in efforts to combat the disease and disability caused by bacterial pathogens. However, the case for their use in bacterial vaccines is less clear: the expression of a bacterial protein in a eukaryotic cell may impact on the antigen localization, induce unwanted glycosylation or affect protein conformation, and this is also true if using the mRNA vaccine platform. The potential and challenges of adenoviral vectors was explored against two bacterial diseases, capsular group B meningococcus and the plague. While all antigens and combinations were able to induce high antibody responses after a single dose immunisation in mice, not all were able to induce functional antibodies. We show that a subset of outer membrane proteins from Gram-negative bacteria can be incorporated into gene-based vectors for novel vaccine development. While our work highlights the challenges inherent in developing novel vaccines using this technology and can be applied to mRNA, the successful progression of two novel bacterial vaccines to clinical development underlines the potential of these platforms for vaccine development against bacterial diseases.

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Tue 19 Sep 16:00: Title to be confirmed

Fri, 09/12/2022 - 09:54
Title to be confirmed

Chaired by Dr Paul Freeman

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