VIDO-InterVac Resumes Effort to Create ASF Vaccine

Jun 21, 2021

VIDO-InterVac has resumed its work on the development of an African Swine Fever Vaccine after having shifted its attention to COVID-19. African Swine Fever is an OIE reportable disease which affects swine that is not present in North America but continues to spread in Europe and Asia.

Dr. Andrew Van Kessel, the Associate Director Research with the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, VIDO-InterVac, explains the virus responsible for African Swine Fever is extremely complicated.

Clip-Dr. Andrew Van Kessel-VIDO-InterVac:

It's a virus with a large genome, like 160 genes which is quite unusual, quite large terms of the viral world and developing a vaccine that A is capable of protecting and infection and B, particularly in North American markets where the virus has not yet arrived, if we're going to use a vaccine strategy, we definitely need to be able to differentiate a vaccinated animal from an infected animal so a vaccine needs to have that capability.

Another challenge is that right now growing the virus requires us to harvest cells from pigs and grow those primary cells from pig lung, pig macrophages in fact and grow them in the laboratory.

That effort of having to go to a pig, harvest cells, go to the lab, attempt to grow the virus and vice versa is a difficult one. So, one of the primary challenges is to establish cells lines that allow us to grow the virus and grow it invitro in the laboratory so that can work with it, study it, so that it doesn't change its structure from the natural virus that is infecting pigs.

Source : Farmscape

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.