Research

Funding: Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur, 119.980 EUR

Project Details:
Interactions between humans and wild animals in teh urban environment take place in many ways, indirectly and directly, rationally and emotionally. The discourse will involve various interest groups using variable discussion formats with online participation and accompanying data collection. Structured debates, including scientific findings and expertise, are intended to formulate theses on how to deal with animals in the human environment and create respective recommendations.

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.

Project Details:
Ein Verfahren zur Messung des Stresslevels über Ausscheidungen des Mäusebussards soll etabliert, validiert und anschließend zur Einschätzung der Stressbelastung von Tieren in Rehabilitation eingesetzt werden.

Cooperation Partners:

Prof. Dr. Touma, Universität Osnabrück

Project Details:
Ziel des Projektes ist die Untersuchung von Probenmaterial zum Nachweis von Mykoplasmen bei Schlangen, und die Auswertung in Abhängigkeit von der Lokalisation, Spezies und der klinischen Symptomatik.

Cooperation Partners:

Laboklin GmbH

PD Dr. Rachel Marschang

Marline Faulhaber

Project Details:
Ziel der Studie soll die Evaluierung der Ausbreitung von Ophidiomyces in der Schlangenpopulation in Deutschland sein. Durch Einbeziehung klinisch gesunder und erkrankter Schlangen soll eine Aussage bezüglich der Prävalenz getroffen und weitere Erkenntnisse über die Pathogenität und Auswirkungen sowohl auf das Einzeltier als auch die Gesamtpopulation sollen gesammelt werden.

Cooperation Partners:

Laboklin GmbH

PD Dr. Rachel Marschang

Lisa Schüler

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: Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU), 115.800 EUR

Project Details:
The Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research (ITAW) of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (TiHo) Foundation deals with a variety of veterinary and biological research topics in different wildlife species. These include, for example, habitat use, reproduction, feeding ecology, infectious diseases in wild animals, effects of anthropogenic activities and their protection and management of their habitat. ITAW has extensive experience in working on national and international research projects. In addition to project days at the institute, lectures as part of the "Children's University", participation in vocational training fairs or interactive information stands at various events, ITAW carries out a wide range of activities in those areas. Environmental education has always played a major role and is reflected, for example, in long-standing cooperation with local schools. An important aspect of the international marine research projects, some of which are funded by the EU, is the development of communication material that is also aimed at schoolchildren. In the project "Marine Mammals Science Education", expedition boxes on the topic of marine mammals were created for the first time in 2018 and were successfully used by ITAW and all project partners in Germany and abroad (www.marine-mammals.com). Funded by the Volks-Wagen-Stiftung in cooperation with schools in Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, further boxes have been developed and tested. They deal with topics such as parasites, viruses as well as bones and skulls and are based on various topics in biology tuition. These first research boxes can be borrowed from the TiHo website as part of school projects at the ITAW and enable independent and active learning in face-to-face lessons, see:

https://www.tiho-hannover.de/forschungskisten

Within the scope of the intended project, new research boxes on various wildlife and environmental topics will be developed and made available to schools for classroom and online teaching. These boxes contain experiments, teaching material, digital materials (e.g. films, PPTs) as well as information for "home-exploring". Furthermore, the individual processing of individual topics within the framework of homeschooling for two different age groups, among other things through diverse creative forms of work, is a component of the boxes. Interviews with scientific experts are also planned, as is the digital dissemination of lectures within the framework of the Children's University. Within the framework of science transfer, a selection of current research results and methods on the following six main topics is planned:

-Bioacoustics - Communication of wild animals
-Barriers to wildlife on land and water
-Effects of agriculture on small game species
-Threats and protection options for the otter
-Microplastics in wildlife
-Invasive species - e.g. raccoon, raccoon dog, woolly hand crab

Using these research topics from veterinary medicine and biology, students learn about research activities and scientific research methods through their own work.

Results:

Research boxes on veterinary and biological issues in various wild animal species were created. Science Transfer Mission (STM) lends out the research boxes for the TiHo via the website www.forschungskiste.com. There are "real" research boxes with experiments and teaching material available, as well as digital research boxes only with teaching material.

http://www.forschungskiste.com/unterrichtsmaterial

Cooperation Partners:

Dr. Kirstin Poremba, Schule am Meer (SaM), 25761 Büsum

Katrin Wollny-Goerke, Meeresmedien, 22397 Hamburg

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: TIB, 104.334 EUR

Project Details:
Within the framework of this joint project of the TiHo with the MHH, it is planned to thematically expand and extend the OER collection "Animal Welfare and Ethics" on the Lower Saxony OER platform "Twillo" to include OER contributions on agricultural livestock farming, also from the perspective of public health ethics, taking into account the One Health concept. This is based on the great importance of agriculture for Lower Saxony. Agriculture there has a share of 8.9% of the gross domestic product. The planned OER will address the economic importance of the individual livestock branches as well as the different forms of animal husbandry and the state animal welfare initiative referring to it. Animal ethics, as an established branch of philosophical ethics, is sometimes very critical of farm animal husbandry. However, the ethical discussion of farm animal husbandry from the perspective of medical and public health ethics remains largely unaddressed, especially in the German-speaking world. Therefore, the OER should also support Twillo users in understanding the basics of the human-animal relationship in farm animals.

Results:

The OER named in the application were created and uploaded to twillo.de:

OER "Economic importance of agricultural pig farming"

OER "Economic importance of agricultural cattle farming"

OER "Economic importance of agricultural chicken husbandry"

OER "Forms of husbandry in pig fattening"

OER "Forms of husbandry in chicken fattening"

OER "Housing systems for cattle on conventional dairy and fattening farms"

OER "Farming husbandry systems for chickens"

As there were legal changes to the state animal welfare label by the end of the approval period, the OER "state animal welfare label" could not be created. Instead, the following OER was created:

OER "economic importance of livestock farming"

Cooperation Partners:

MHH

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.