A team of biosciences program staff represents the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) at the 12th Biennial Conference of the Society for Tropical Veterinary Medicine (STVM) and the VIII International Conference on Ticks and Tick-borne Pathogens (TTP8). The joint conference is held in Cape Town, South Africa, 24–29 August 2014.

The aim of the conference is to promote discussion between scientists, practitioners and decision-makers from various fields, as well as to update researchers, academics, governmental and non-governmental organization representatives, technicians, veterinarians and other professionals from industry and the private sector working on emerging and re-emerging disease epidemics affecting global health.

A cow’s ear infested with ticks (photo credit: ILRI).

ILRI held a side event on 24 August to sensitize conference participants on ILRI’s work on tick and tick-pathogen combination vaccines, vector-pathogen interactions, the molecular basis of vector competence, the influence of climate on the prevalence of tick-transmitted diseases and screening African ticks for the presence of human pathogens.

Vish Nene and Richard Bishop present on ‘ILRI’s vaccine research platform’ and ‘tick research at ILRI’ respectively.

More generally, the joint STVM-12 and TTP-8 conference will cover scientific topics on disease risks and challenges—both for animals and for humans—brought by viral, bacterial and parasitic pathogens. Shared sessions will focus on:

• parasites and climate change
• innovative pathogen detection tools
• host-parasite-pathogen relationships
• immunity and vaccines
• innovative solutions for parasiticide drug discovery

Resources:

• Find conference information
• ILRI tick unit  (some publications)
• ILVAC vaccine research platform

See ILRI posters from the event:

• Novel Theileria genotypes from wildlife in a Theileria parva—Endemic area in Kenya
• Bio-banking and metagenomics platforms for pathogen discovery at ILRI