Research

Funding: Industry (Veterinary pharmaceuticals/Vaccines), 567.421 EUR

Project Details:
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Funding: DFG, 110.700 EUR

Project Details:
Tetraspanins are evolutionary conserved integral membrane proteins of 200-350 amino acid lengths. Through their large extracellular loop they mediate protein - protein and protein - lipid interactions in cellular membranes thereby shaping membrane microdomains called ‘tetraspanin webs’. In humans and mice 33 tetraspanins are described and mosquito species express at least 15 tetraspanin orthologs. In mammalian cells, tetraspanins are host co-factors for several viruses including papillomaviruses, influenza virus, hepatitis C virus, HIV-1 and coronaviruses (Gerold et al., 2015; Bruening et al. 2018; Banse et al., 2018; Alberione et al. 2020; Palor et al., 2020). For hepatitis C virus, colleagues and we showed that the tetraspanin CD81 is a host range determining factor (Vogt et al. 2013; Scull et al., 2015; von Schaewen et al., 2016).
The proposed project aims at characterizing in detail, which of the 33 human tetraspanins in addition to CD81 are host factors for alphaviruses and whether tetraspanins from reservoir species, dead end host species and transmitting mosquito vectors serve as host factors of alphaviruses. Thereby the work will contribute to the understanding of the molecular composition and function of alphavirus replication complexes and determine the role of tetraspanins in species range, transmission and consequently emergence of alphaviruses.

Funding: University of St Andrews, 212.000 EUR

Project Details:
The European Atlantic is changing rapidly, and it is essential that neighbouring countries have access to up-to-date robust information on the status of key species and populations so that future monitoring and management can be directed effectively and efficiently to achieve and maintain favourable conservation status of species and good environmental status of European Atlantic waters. The "Small Cetaceans in European Atlantic waters and the North Sea (SCANS)" survey is being planned for summer 2022. The objective of SCANS-IV is to estimate the abundance of cetacean species in shelf and oceanic waters of the European Atlantic through a large-scale multinational aerial and shipboard survey in July 2022. This is the most appropriate survey month because of the higher probability of good sighting conditions, and also to ensure that results are comparable with those from SCANS surveys conducted in 1994, 2005/2007 and 2016 (Hammond et al. 2002, 2013, 2021). Thus, this project will represent the fourth survey in the SCANS series. SCANS-IV will deliver regionally coordinated synoptic surveys in shelf and offshore waters of the European Atlantic. It will generate robust abundance estimates for regularly occurring whale and dolphin species and improve power to detect trends in shelf and offshore species. The outputs of the project are timely for EU Member States obligations for reporting under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD Article 8: due 2024) and the next reporting round under the Habitats Directive (Article 17: 2019 - 2024) (where applicable) and allow OSPAR/HELCOM assessments. The estimates are also needed for impact assessments of offshore industries and fisheries.
The project will be achieved through the successful completion of six work packages. The first two WPs (WP1 & WP2) focus on collecting data on cetacean abundance and distribution through implementation of aerial surveys on the continental shelf and shipboard surveys in offshore waters. The data will be analysed in WP3 to generate abundance estimates, trends and perform spatio-temporal habitat modelling. WP4 will consider the long-term security of the large-scale cetacean monitoring SCANS programme in the Northeast Atlantic and propose a governance structure to ensure the continuation into the future. WPs 5 & 6 will focus on dissemination of results, project management and reporting.

Results:

Estimates of cetacean abundance in European Atlantic waters in summer 2022 from the SCANS-IV aerial and shipboard surveys. Final report published 29 September 2023. 64 pp.

https://tinyurl.com/3ynt6swa

Cooperation Partners:

Projektkoordination Dr. Anita Gilles, ITAW-Stiftung Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover

University of St Andrews, United Kingdom  

Joint Nature Conservation Committee, United Kingdom  

Wageningen Marine Research, Netherlands  

Aarhus University, Denmark  

Swedish Museum of Natural History, Sweden  

La Rochelle University, France 

Instituto Español de Oceanografia, Spain  

University of Aveiro, CESAM - Centre of Environmental and Marine Studies and Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas, Portugal

Funding: Fritz-Ahrberg-Stiftung, 40.000 EUR

Project Details:
Recent studies show that after processing pork and turkey meat frozen stored at -80°C for up to 48 weeks to raw sausages, red values of the sausages were higher and aw values lower compared to unfrozen or at -18°C frozen stored meat samples. These results suggest that when producing products from such frozen meat, the concentrations of cooking salt and nitrite salts might be reduced, as red values and aw values would change in the opposite sense when salts are reduced. However, a reduction of common salt and nitrite salts must be proportionate, as the shelf life and texture of the products could be changed. In the study, meat from beef, pork, chicken and turkey is therefore stored for 24 weeks at -18°C and -80°C and, after thawing, processed into raw and cooked sausages with reduced NaCl and nitrite concentrations. The meat products are analysed microbiologically, sensory and physicochemically during maturation and further storage in a protective gas atmosphere.

Funding: Brigitte und Wolfram Gedek - Stiftung, 40.000 EUR

Project Details:
Enteropathogenic Bacillus cereus are responsible for a diarrhoeal type of food poisoning. In earlier studies, we could show that milk inhibits the toxic activity of B. cereus enterotoxins towards human colon epithelial cells. At this, caseins as well as lactoferrin seem to hinder the interaction between the single toxin components. In this project, the influence of lactoferrin on growth and enterotoxin production of different B. cereus isolates is tested at first. Strain-specific differences are made visible, as well as the influence of different lactoferrins and their derivatives. The molecular mechanisms underlying the enhanced enterotoxin production after lactoferrin exposure are investigated via RNA sequencing. It is further tested which genes are up- or downregulated under iron deficiency and especially after lactoferrin contact. This gives an overview on the transcriptional changes in the organism. The second point is the detailed investigation of the inhibiting effect of lactoferrin towards the B. cereus enterotoxins in cell culture systems. For this, different commercially available lactoferrin products and derivatives will be tested, as well as their impact on different B. cereus toxins such as haemolysin BL, the non-haemolytic enterotoxin, cytotoxic K and the emetic toxin cereulide. Finally, the issue of lactoferrin-sensing and motility (chemotaxis) of selected B. cereus strains will be investigated. Next to the general ability of active movement, it will be tested if lactoferrin has a repelling or attracting effect on a certain isolate.

Funding: Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre, Projektförderung Freiraum, 144.160 EUR

Project Details:
Entomophagy has traditionally been practised in many regions and is now gaining popularity in Europe. Commercial production reduces the burden on wild populations, ensures safety and quality and generates new streams of income. However, like all other domesticated animals, insects reared in large quantities need oversight to ensure animal welfare and health. This does not happen yet.
The aim of this project is therefor to train students of veterinary and biological sciences to work in this field. As an elective module veterinary students learn how to care for and assess insect rearing, while students of biology learn to how to identify edible insect species. Students will raise their own insect charge and will become a potential advisor for farmers interested in commercial insect rearing.

Funding: Verein für Bioökonomieforschung (FBF), 9.600 EUR

Project Details:
The FBF funded project "Influence of stress during rearing management and later eligibility in sperm production" revealed a clear difference in a developed management score and in mean testosterone concentrations between young bulls with good versus poor sperm quality. However, due to a lack of sensitivity, hormone measurements could not be used as adequate diagnostic tests to identify very good or bad bulls with regard to their later performance and performance persistence, neither at an age of four months nor later at the first semen collection.
This more in-depth study is designed to search for better biomarkers using proteomics as non-target approach. Bulls with a very good versus bad performance persistence over two years will be analyzed by mass spectrometry using the plasma samples collected close to the first semen collection during the preliminary project. Data sets of the mass spectrometric measurements with identified peptides will be matched with a bovine protein database to finally name proteins of the plasma samples. Both groups of bulls will be compared with respect to the proteins identified and the amounts of the same.
In order to establish test methods that are as practicable as possible, promising fertility-associated proteins will subsequently be measured in the blood samples from all age classes investigated during bull calf rearing using commercially available ELISA kits. These data will be used to establish reference ranges and thresholds using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses. Optimally, suitable biomarkers in the blood allow an early preselection of bull calves that are eligible for the collection of quantitatively and qualitatively good semen.

Cooperation Partners:

Institut für Toxikologie, Medizinische Hochschule Hannover

Funding: DFG, 117.450 EUR

Project Details:
Das West Nile Virus (WNV) ist eine in allen Regionen der Welt verbreitete Zoonose und wird durch verschiedene Stechmückenarten auf wild lebende Vögel übertragen. Es kann sich aber auch auf Menschen und Pferde ausweiten, wobei es neben meist asymptomatisch Verläufen bei etwa 20 - 30 % der Erkrankten zu grippeähnlichen Symptomen ("West-Nil-Fieber") und in 1-2 % der Fällen sogar zur Ausbildung einer schweren, neuroinvasiven Form mit meist fatalem Ausgang kommt. Ältere Individuen haben ein höheres Risiko, eine solche neuroinvasive Form zu entwickeln.
Im Jahr 2018 konnte das West Nil Virus in Deutschland neben Pferden und Vögeln auch erstmalig beim Menschen diagnostiziert werden und wurde 2019 bei 5 Personen als Krankheitsursache bestätigt. Im Gegensatz zur Anwendung im Pferde gibt es noch keine für den Menschen zugelassene Impfung, weshalb jene Entwicklung von großer Bedeutung ist. In Anbetracht des erhöhten Risikos einer schweren Erkrankung bei älteren Individuen ist insbesondere für diese Gruppe ein Impfstoff von hohem Interesse. Dies wird dadurch erschwert, dass Impfungen in dieser Gruppe zu einer schwächer ausgeprägten und damit weniger effektiven Immunantwort führen können. Daher soll die Immunantwort älterer Mäuse auf den von uns entwickelten Impfstoff gegen das West-Nil-Virus charakterisiert werden, insbesondere in Hinblick auf die Entwicklung einer T-Zell-Immunität.
Ziel ist es, die WNV Pathogenese bei Tier und Mensch und die Impfstoff-induzierte Immunantwort im Hinblick auf schützende Korrelate besser zu verstehen, damit neue therapeutische und präventive Strategien entwickelt werden können.

Funding: Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand (ZIM), 218.163 EUR

Project Details:
Entwicklung der Vorgaben und Grundlagen für Diagnosesoftware, Entwicklung von weiterführenden diagnostischen Empfehlungen, therapeutischen Konzepten und Therapieempfehlungen

Funding: Rentenbank, 90.000 EUR

Project Details:
The project aims at the integration of animal welfare as a constant dimension in the concept of sustainability. The work is done on conceptional levels and by use of case studies of selected kind of farm animals.

Results:

Using one of the resulting models, we can show that animal welfare is a protected good among many other sustainability goods, but due to its categorical difference it cannot be implemented as an equivalent element alongside the other sustainability dimensions in a sustainability concept. We were therefore unable to achieve a "genuine" integration of animal welfare as a constitutive component, but we were able to achieve a meaningful positioning via the social dimension of sustainability as a connecting link.

Since a decision is required in the case of conflicting objectives despite categorical differences, we have developed a reflection model as a proposal for dealing with this problem, which can serve as a basis for weighting in the case of value preference decisions. We have demonstrated its applicability in detail using a specific example.

Overall, we have been able to clearly distinguish ourselves from other concepts in the current sustainability discourse, among other things through the well-founded selection of arguments that can be applied from an ethical perspective.

The absolute goal of the sustainability debate in connection with animal husbandry and animal welfare is not clearly discernible from the discourse situation, so that there is still motivation to participate by contributing valid arguments.

 

Using one of the resulting models, we can show that animal welfare is a protected good among many other sustainability goods, but due to its categorical difference it cannot be implemented as an equivalent element alongside the other sustainability dimensions in a sustainability concept. We were therefore unable to achieve a "genuine" integration of animal welfare as a constitutive component, but we were able to achieve a meaningful positioning via the social dimension of sustainability as a connecting link.

Since a decision is required in the case of conflicting objectives despite categorical differences, we have developed a reflection model as a proposal for dealing with this problem, which can serve as a basis for weighting in the case of value preference decisions. We have demonstrated its applicability in detail using a specific example.

Overall, we have been able to clearly distinguish ourselves from other concepts in the current sustainability discourse, among other things through the well-founded selection of arguments that can be applied from an ethical perspective.

The absolute goal of the sustainability debate in connection with animal husbandry and animal welfare is not clearly discernible from the discourse situation, so that there is still motivation to participate by contributing valid arguments.

The design of a model with a high degree of concretization that adequately takes animal welfare into account is currently considerably limited by the fact that objectively measurable thresholds are not yet available.