3.Translating genomic information to tools for controlling
diseases
- There is a critical need to preserve animal genetic diversity and to
understand the role of genetic variations on host responses to
diseases, drug treatments, and vaccination.
- There is a lack of rapid, robust, accurate and cost effective genetic
tests to use in analyzing disease outbreaks for both the disease agent
and the host.
- There is a need to integrate studies on disease resistance with
selection programmes. This will require strategic collaborations with
commercial breeding companies.
- The application of animal genome-enabled tools will demand fundamental
changes in the approaches used to discover and develop animal drugs
and vaccines, including their delivery and application in disease
control programmes. One of the main challenges is the total absence of
regulatory guidelines for the applications of these new technologies,
including transgenic animals.
- The ability to design drugs and vaccines for genetically defined
animal populations will require additional planning. For instance, in
the area of vaccines, there is a lack of established’ vaccine
profiles’ to identify specifically what a vaccine is expected to
achieve (e.g. efficacy with one dose, mass vaccination capability,
prevent disease transmission, etc.) for specific diseases in
individual animals and targeted commercial populations. Vaccines must
not only be designed to achieve the desired vaccine profile but must
also anticipate the genetic variations of the host and pathogens to
enable predicted outcomes in vaccination campaigns and the selection
of good responders to vaccination.