̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - ̽��ֱ�� of St Andrews

Study highlights ‘unbridled globetrotting’ of the strangles pathogen in horses

jg533 — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 09:32:59 +0000

̽��ֱ��results, published today in the journal Microbial Genomics, provide evidence of the important role played by the movement of horses in spreading this disease, providing new opportunities for interventions that will prevent future outbreaks.

Strangles, caused by the bacteria Streptococcus equi, is the most frequently diagnosed infectious disease of horses, with 600 outbreaks estimated to occur in the United Kingdom each year.

Streptococcus equi invades the lymph nodes of head and neck of horses, causing them to swell and form abscesses that can, in around 2% of cases, literally strangle the horse to death. Some of the horses that recover from strangles remain persistently infected. These apparently healthy animals shed bacteria into the environment and spread the disease to other horses that they come into contact with.

Using standard diagnostic testing, the Streptococcus equi strains look almost identical. But by carefully examining the DNA of the bacteria, the team were able to track different variants as they spread across the world.

̽��ֱ��research used the new online Pathogenwatch resource, developed at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, to visualise and share genome data to track the course of infections.

“Piecing the puzzle together, we showed that cases in Argentina, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates were closely linked. Along with other examples, we provide evidence that the global trade and movement of horses is helping to spread the disease,” said Professor Matthew Holden of the ̽��ֱ�� of St Andrews, who was involved in the study.

"This study shows once again the power of genomic data to uncover the fine detail of pathogen transmission locally and globally,” said Professor Julian Parkhill in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, who was involved in the study.

He added: “Using whole genome sequences we can track the movement of pathogens with very high precision, showing how and where to intervene to prevent the disease spreading."

Strangles was first described in Medieval times and, with the exception of Iceland, affects horses in all corners of the world. ̽��ֱ��freedom from this disease enjoyed by Iceland is by virtue of a ban on the import of horses, which has been in place for over 1,000 years.

“This has been an incredible team effort, which was only possible through the collaboration of leading researchers from twenty-nine different scientific institutes in eighteen countries” said Dr Andrew Waller of Intervacc AB.

Horses are transported all over the world as they move to new premises or attend competitions and events. New cases of Strangles can be prevented by treating carriers before they pass on the bacteria.

Reference

Mitchell, C. et al. 'Globetrotting strangles: the unbridled national and international transmission of Streptococcus equi between horses.' Microbial Genomics, March 2021.

Collaborating Institutes

Argentina: Clinica Equina, Buenos Aires

Australia: ̽��ֱ�� of Melbourne

Belgium: Ghent ̽��ֱ��, Merelbeke

France: LABÉO Frank Duncombe, Caen

Germany: Labor Dr. Böse GmbH, Harsum

Ireland: Irish Equine Centre, Naas; ̽��ֱ�� College Dublin

Israel: Kimron Veterinary Institute, Bet Dagan

Italy: ̽��ֱ�� of Camerino

Japan: Japan Racing Association, Tochigi

Poland: Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Warsaw ̽��ֱ�� of Life Sciences - SGGW

New Zealand: Massey ̽��ֱ��, Palmerston North; ̽��ֱ�� of Waikato, Hamilton

Saudi Arabia: Al Khalediah Equine Hospital, Riyadh

Spain: Exopol, Zaragoza; Universidad Complutense, Madrid

Sweden: Department of Biomedical Science and Veterinary Public Health, Swedish ̽��ֱ�� of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala; Intervacc AB, Stockholm

̽��ֱ��Netherlands: Royal GD, Deventer

United Arab Emirates: Central Veterinary Research Laboratory, Dubai; Emirates Racing Authority, Dubai

United Kingdom: Animal Health Trust, Newmarket; Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, Nuffield Department of Medicine, ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford; Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge; Redwings Horse Sanctuary; ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge; ̽��ֱ�� of St Andrews

United States of America: Gluck Equine Research Center, Lexington; Weatherford Equine Medical Centre, Texas

Adapted from a press release by Intervacc.

In the largest ever study of its kind into an equine pathogen, scientists in 18 countries used the latest DNA sequencing techniques to track the bacteria responsible for a disease called 'strangles’ in horses around the world.

Using whole genome sequences we can track the movement of pathogens with very high precision, showing how and where to intervene to prevent the disease spreading.

Julian Parkhill

Nicky on Pixabay

Horse

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Attribution

Women in STEM: Amy Rankine

sc604 — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 07:03:20 +0000

I first developed an interest in astronomy at high school during a project run by the ̽��ֱ�� of St Andrews. I grew up in a small town on the East coast of Scotland, not far from St Andrews and so my high school was involved in the ̽��ֱ��’s First Chances project. ̽��ֱ��project was for pupils from the local area who would be the first in their family to go to university. I chose to investigate the different methods used to detect planets outside our Solar System and by the end of the project, I had decided that I wanted to study astrophysics at St Andrews. After graduating from university in 2017, I moved down to Cambridge to start my PhD in Astronomy.

Choosing to study for my PhD at Cambridge was the best decision I could have made. ̽��ֱ��Institute of Astronomy is an extremely friendly, welcoming and inspiring place to work, with an array of research taking place — on exoplanets, star formation and galaxy evolution to name just a few areas. This really helps me to explore different ideas when it comes to my work; because I can speak to so many passionate researchers who each have a fresh perspective and their own expertise. Through my supervisors, I have access to international collaborators which will hopefully help broaden my career prospects in the future. I’m still considering what career path I want to take, but through my PhD, I hope to develop the skills to successfully transition into a postdoctoral researcher position, or into industry.

In my research, I investigate the relationship between galaxies and the supermassive black holes that sit at their centres. Hot gas swirls around the black hole before it reaches the event horizon, and just as hot metal shines red or even white, and stars shine bright, this hot gas emits a lot of radiation. We call these objects active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and some of them are the brightest objects we see in the Universe — so bright that they can outshine the rest of the host galaxy. I want to explore how the brightest of these objects (quasars) affect their host galaxies and investigate their role in galaxy evolution throughout the history of the Universe.

I spend most of my time writing code to analyse observations of these bright AGNs. At the moment, I work mostly with quasar spectra which tell us how much of different wavelengths of light is emitted by the quasars. ̽��ֱ��spectra can tell us a lot about the quasar; for example, how massive the black hole is. I also read a lot of scientific papers and attend talks at the Institute of Astronomy to keep up to date with my field and to satisfy my interest in other areas. I’ve given talks at international conferences which are also important in astronomy for sharing our work and forming collaborations.

A key moment for me was completing a summer research project during my undergraduate degree. I was awarded funding from the Royal Society of Edinburgh to complete the Cormack Vacation Scholarship, which allowed me to undertake a six-week research project. This was my first experience of research, and the project really opened my eyes to the possibilities of a career in academia. My project won the Cormack Undergraduate Research Prize, and the whole experience helped me decide to do a research degree. Beforehand, I didn’t think that research was something that I wanted to do, but after thoroughly enjoying the project I decided that a PhD was my next step.

There shouldn’t be anything that prevents anyone from following their passion. My advice to any woman thinking about pursuing a degree or career in a STEM discipline would be to go ahead and do it! I was lucky enough to have a lot of support at home and at school but I know this isn’t the case for everyone. Reach out to other women in your chosen field and don’t be afraid to ask about opportunities open to you.

Amy Rankine is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Astronomy and a member of Clare Hall. Here, she tells us about being the first in her family to go to university, why she decided to pursue an academic career, and how the brightest things in the universe affect the formation of galaxies.

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Novel Thoughts: what Cambridge scientists read

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Jun 2015 12:00:45 +0000

We may think that scientists inhabit a precisely focused world, far away from the messy realm of stories and the imagination, but a new film series, Novel Thoughts, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge shows that there is a bridge between the two.

Reading fiction helps scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real human stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks.

For psychologist Dr Amy Milton, reading Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby during her PhD had a profound effect on her work. Its bleak portrayal of the downward spiral into addiction spurred her on to complete her thesis on cocaine addiction and to deepen her research into preventing relapse.

“ ̽��ֱ��book gave me a real insight into what it’s like for individuals living with addiction. It summed up how addiction, and the consequences of it, has not always been taken seriously as a disease by psychiatry,” she said.

As a teenager, Professor Carol Brayne’s love of Charles Dickens and George Eliot opened her eyes to a world in which social inequality had a powerful impact on people’s health and wellbeing. She vowed to become a doctor, and is now a leading figure in public health research at Cambridge. Her voracious reading as a young adult helped her understand the importance of seeing the bigger picture, and of finding health interventions that take account of the complexities of people’s lives.

For some, a book came along at just the right time. Professor Clare Bryant, of the Department of Zoology, read A S Byatt’s Possession at a crucial point in her early career. Its page-turning portrayal of two historians racing to uncover hidden truths reminded her of the excitement of scientific discovery, and persuaded her not to turn her back on her own research career.

Books can have a resonance throughout a scientific lifetime. Dr Juliet Foster can see that the themes explored in ̽��ֱ��Madness of a Seduced Woman by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, which she read as a PhD student, still have echoes in her current social psychology research into public understandings of mental illness.

Dr Sarah Dillon, now in the Faculty of English at Cambridge, was the first to explore some of these ideas in a project she developed at the ̽��ֱ�� of St Andrews. Much has been written about science’s influence on literature – from Frankenstein to the futuristic worlds of science fiction – but she wanted to find out if the influence happened in the other direction. Did literature have an impact on the world of science?

Dillon joined forces with social scientist Christine Knight, and astronomer turned creative writer Pippa Goldschmidt to investigate What Scientists Read.

“What we found was that reading literature and ‘non-science’ books did have an influence on their work in quite surprising ways,” said Dillon. “There were lots of examples of scientists being more open to qualitative research methodologies because of valuing the knowledge that literature, even though it’s not ‘true’, gives you.”

̽��ֱ��Novel Thoughts film series begins on 8 June with physicist Dr Paul Coxon sharing his childhood reading about the quirky adventures of a boy inventor in the novel SOS Bobomobile. New films will be released every Monday and Friday until 3 July and scientists worldwide are being encouraged to tweet their own inspirational book using #novelthoughts.

Look out for:

Professor Clare Bryant from the Department of Veterinary Medicine discussing Possession by AS Byatt on 12 June.

Karen Yu from the Department of Engineering discussing Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker by George Lucas on 15 June.

Professor Simon Redfern from the Department of Earth Sciences discussing Jamila by Chinghiz Aitmatov on 19 June.

Dr Juliet Foster from the Department of Psychology discussing ̽��ֱ��Madness of a Seduced Woman by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer on 22 June.

Professor Carol Brayne, Director of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, discussing Middlemarch by George Eliot on 29 June.

Dr Amy Milton from the Department of Psychology discussing Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Junior on 3 July.

Literature and science may seem like opposite ends of the spectrum, but reading can have an impact on even the most scientific of brains. A new film series reveals the reading habits of seven Cambridge scientists and peeks inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.

̽��ֱ��book gave me a real insight into what it’s like for individuals living with addiction

Amy Milton

Novel Thoughts #1: Paul Coxon on Jan Wahl's SOS Bobmobile

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Novel Thoughts

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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