Enhancing the efficacy and ease of application of existing endemic livestock disease vaccines via novel adjuvants and delivery systems

Many vaccines currently used to prevent and control endemic livestock diseases (ELD) are suboptimal. Whilst these vaccines may provide some clinical benefit, by reducing disease severity, they fail to effectively control pathogens. By allowing pathogen replication in the face of immune selective pressure, these vaccines can drive pathogen evolution, enabling the transmission of pathogens that are less effectively controlled by vaccination. In addition to the inherent suboptimal efficacy of existing vaccines, there are practical issues of storage and administration on-farm that require improvement. Therefore, the research question we seek to answer is ‘can novel adjuvants and delivery systems make existing ELD vaccines more efficacious and easier to use on-farm?’