Many scientists dream of finding a way to combat a virus successfully, but Gordon Allan and his colleagues have actually done it.
Professor Allan’s expertise, known all over the world, is in pig diseases. He retired in 2009 as Principal Scientific Officer with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), formerly the Science Service of the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, where he had worked for 40 years, but in addition he has had a long association with Queen’s as an honorary Professor, working with the University on a range of successful research projects. In 2011 he was appointed as a ‘World Leading Expert’ Professor of Porcine Virology in the School of Biological Sciences.
‘I believe I was the first technician from the Veterinary Sciences Division of the Department of Agriculture to register at Queen’s for a PhD. This was on the characterisation, epidemiology and pathogenesis of porcine circovirus. ‘I was working on a virus which we now know as PCV1 when I was contacted by people at the University of Saskatoon in Canada who had found an unusual new wasting disease in pigs in Canada. It was emerging at the same time in France. ‘They thought it might be a pig circovirus which was why they came to me for help. We sent these colleagues in Canada a lot of reagents and expertise and they sent us material. Together we worked in the labs in Belfast and Canada and we recovered a new circovirus out of the material from the diseased pigs which was different from PCV1. I designated it PCV2.’
The disease caused by this virus quickly spread around the world and became the most important global swine disease of the ‘noughties.’ Substantial grant funding to study the new disease was obtained through the University’s contracts with the European"It’s been the most successful research to date into swine disease." Union and commercial companies and work began in 1997 involving Queen’s, the Department of Agriculture, the University of Saskatoon and Merial, the multinational animal health company.
Vaccines and diagnostics were developed and they are now being sold globally. PCV2 vaccine is the biggest-selling veterinary vaccine in the world, generating something in the region of 400m US dollars a year in revenue, from which Queen’s and the AFBI receive a substantial royalty.
The successful outcome of this research was driven forward by more than 10 years of international collaborative research, co-ordinated by Professor Allan through Queen’s, resulting in a vaccine that is probably the most efficient ever produced. The animals no longer get the disease. ‘But nature abhors a vacuum and there are, and always will be, new emerging infectious agents and new diseases to fill it.’
He sees today’s funding landscape as being very different from that of 15 years ago. ‘When this disease emerged we were in the position – through serendipity – where we had the expertise on this virus group, but somebody, somewhere on the globe, needs to maintain the expertise in these new small viruses. It’s not easy now to get money from commercial and non-commercial sources for horizon scanning and emerging diseases.
‘The legacy of the work? It’s the most successful research to date into swine disease, in terms of identifying and then solving the problem, and all of the multinational contract research that resulted in this success was coordinated through Queen’s. I make sure I fly that flag wherever I go, helping to generate good PR and perhaps future income for the University.
‘Nowadays I spend a lot of my time reviewing papers and grant applications, attending meetings, networking and advising people about grant applications and if my name helps, that’s fine. Because of my PCV2 research coordination activities I have friends and associates in a lot of laboratories and research institutes around the world, and I still check in with them to find out what they’re doing, what’s new and if I can help.
‘At the moment, among other things, I’m talking to people I know in the pig business about PCV2 disease in sub-Saharan Africa. Nobody’s looked for it there.’
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