Research to prevent food borne illnesses is expanding in Saskatoon.
Two new research chairs will lead and direct research into vaccines aimed at controlling E. coli 0157:H7 in cattle and salmonella enteriditis and campylobacter jejuni in poultry at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Saskatoon.
VIDO developed the first E. coli 0157:H7 vaccine.
“It’s now being commercialized,” said Andy Potter, recipient of the senior research chair position.
The other recipient, Wolfgang Kšster of DŸbendorf, Switzerland, is moving from Europe to Saskatoon.
Potter said the link between animal and human health is undeniably the most important aspect of new and re-emerging disease.
He said that 79 percent of these two categories of disease have links to livestock or wild species, or in the case of avian flu, both.
The research funding, budgeted at $4 million over five years, is being split between Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. and the federal government’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
