Engineered Probiotics for Farm Animal and Human Nematodes

As with ruminant livestock, anthelmintic resistance is a serious problem in the equine industry. Resistance has been reported to all drug classes labeled for equine usage, and prevalences are rapidly increasing. Multidrug resistant parasites are now a common finding on managed horse farms all over the world, which is posing an increasing threat to equine health and economy in the equine industry. The pharmaceutical industry has now introduced new anthelmintic drug classes for equine usage since the early 1980s, and there a no new developments expected in a foreseeable future. The University of Kentucky-based equine parasitologist, Dr. Martin Nielsen, will devote 5% of his full-time effort to this study during the first two study years, 10% in the third year, and 15% in the two last eyarsover the five study years. The work will include providing live parasite isolates from two well-characterized parasite populations maintained for over three decades at the University of Kentucky. The parasite isolates will be used for lethality testing with in vitro testing of Cry5B delivered in lysates of strains of Bacillus that are Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS), and performing field efficacy trials in years 4 and 5 of the study.