000836 Scientists Test E.Coli Vaccine on Cattle

Toronto, Ontario, Canada - Canadian scientists are testing a vaccine in cattle this month that could eradicate a deadly strain of the E.Coli bacteria at the source, and prevent costly ground beef recalls.

The National Research Council has teamed up with Foragen Technology Ventures Inc., a seed capital fund of the Royal Bank of Canada, to test an oral vaccine in cattle at the Veterinary Disease Organisation in Saskatoon.

Foragen said it will invest up to C$2 million to determine whether the vaccine, which has demonstrated in mice the ability to kill the 0157 E.Coli strain, is commercially viable.

“We are trying to get quantitative results and then look at probably forming a company around the technologies,” said Dr. Murray McLaughlin, President of Foragen and Saskatchewan's former Deputy Minister of Agriculture.

Cattle are the primary source of the 0157:H7 variety of E.Coli, a potentially deadly pathogen that can cause life threatening infections, such as the recent outbreak in the rural town of Walkerton in May that contributed to six deaths.

The 0157 strain of E.Coli, known as the “hamburger disease” has shown up in a number of ground beef shipments lately, and on Wednesday, forced Winnipeg's Lakeside Packers to recall a 65,857 kg shipment exported to the U.S.

Earlier this month, a second Milwaukee Sizzler steakhouse was closed after a three year old girl died and about 50 people were infected with food borne 0157 E.Coli.

A recent report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that 89% of U.S. beef ground into patties contains traces of the deadly E.Coli strain.

And the Centre For Disease Control in Atlanta estimates that about 52 Americans die annually from food tainted with the bacteria and 73,000 are infected.

Dr. Malcolm Perry, director at the National Research Council's Bacterial Pathogenesis Group, said results from the vaccine trials in cattle should be known fairly soon, and then it must be shown to be safe and cheap.

“If this works, it should be fairly easy to produce herds that are free of E.Coli. Although we can never say it will never reoccur, I think it has a good chance of working, and there is nothing else on the horizon,” said Perry.

Perry said research into the deadly 0157 molecule on the surface of the E.Coli bacteria - a bacteria that is present in humans and animals and actually maintains health - started 20 years ago when outbreaks first hit North America.

His team was the first to map a molecular model of 0157, and to create an antibody that attached itself to the molecule, which in turn was used as a specific diagnostic agent.

This process led to the discovery of other unrelated bacteria that also carried the 0157 molecule, but were not toxic.

It is these unrelated bacteria that have been formulated into a vaccine and orally administered to small animals by Perry's team.

Perry said that not only did the vaccine demonstrate the ability to protect the animals from contracting E.Coli, but also de-colonised the animal of existing E.Coli.

“The question is whether you can transfer this from small animals to cattle, and that's the experiment we got the external funding from Foragen to do,” said Perry.

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