Participants

The consortium consists of the Central Science Laboratory (methodology and quarantine plant and bee viruses), Health Protection Agency Porton (methodology and zoonotic viruses), Institute for Animal Health Pirbright (FMDV & other exotic viral diseases of livestock), Veterinary Laboratory Agency (avian influenza, rabies and mammalian diseases), Institute for Animal Health Compton (avian viruses and emerging viruses), CEFAS (quarantine fish viruses) and Royal Veterinary College (bovine respiratory viruses). This unique consortium will also exploit the clear synergies between plant, animal and clinical virology (and different government departments) which is a dominant message emerging from the DIID Foresight project.

CSL, VLA, IAH-P, CEFAS and HPA all carry out and have International mandates for routine diagnostic laboratory functions for statutory virus diagnosis and surveillance. All have comprehensive mechanisms to transfer validated and accredited diagnostic protocols from their research functions to routine diagnostic functions. All are involved in representation at EU, IPPO/FAO or OIE level to help facilitate international uptake and acceptance of any new methodologies.

RVC is the largest veterinary school within the UK and has recently been appointed as a Defra Surveillance Centre to investigate livestock diseases in the SE of the UK. It has a strong large animal clinic with considerable depth in academic clinical investigation and research. The RVC is in a excellent position to communicate new concepts of disease diagnosis to future veterinarians.

Central Science Laboratory
www.csl.gov.uk

Ian Barker	Project Leader
Neil Boonham	Lead scientist: detection of plant and honey bee viruses.

Veterinary laboratory agency
www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/vla/

Malcolm Banks	Co-ordination of assay validation
Jill Banks	AIV probe validation
Nick Johnson	Rabies

Institute for animal health
www.iah.bbsrc.ac.uk/
www.iah.ac.uk/

Juliet Dukes	Probe design for vesicular diseases, picornaviruses and FMDV genotyping & array validation. Project Manager.
Don King	Review of platform technologies.
Paul Britton	Probe design for avian viruses & array validation
Dave Cavanagh	Coordination of coronavirus probe validation.
Abu-bakr Abu-median	Probe design, Detection of avian viruses & array validation
Michael Watson	Bioinformatics

Health protection agency
www.hpa.org.uk/

Nigel Silman	Coordination of array for human & zoonotic viruses
Karen Kempsell	Design of oligos for human & zoonotic viruses & array validation

Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science
www.cefas.co.uk/

David Stone

Design of oligos for fish viruses & array validation.

The Royal Veterinary College
www.rvc.ac.uk/

Joe Brownlie	Coordination of sample archive and distribution.
Dirk Werling	Validation of livestock virus probes.