Development of breeding values for susceptibility to virulent footrot in sheep: A strategy to accommodate variable disease progression at time of scoring.

Genetic evaluations utilising footrot scores from industry flocks in their essence, incorporate data from a wide range of challenge environments, resulting in potentially large differences in means, variances and distribution of scores across challenges. The date that commencement of infection occurs is generally unknown, and progression of the infection varies with the prevailing environmental and management conditions, virulence of the bacterium Dichelobacter nodosus, as well as the genetic potential and (permanent) environmental ability of animals to resist footrot. In practice, animals are unlikely to be repeatedly scored to identify the best time for comparison, or monitor development of disease progression. Furthermore, field challenges are limited by the need to treat animals before their welfare is compromised. Therefore, the duration and intensity of infection varies and this affects comparisons between animals for their susceptibility. Diseases such as footrot are characterised by multiple categorical scores reflecting clinical stages that describe the progression and relative impact of the disease. This provides the opportunity for the transformation of the data to a standardised prevalence. Scoring events from multiple footrot field challenges under a standardised protocol were used to establish a series of transition matrices to describe disease progression between scores over time. These transition matrices were used to standardise challenge events to the more severe scoring events, observed later in the challenge. The accuracy of the transition technique was tested by comparing the ranking of animals and sires against the observed scores. Transitioning the data from low disease prevalence to the higher prevalence at the subsequent scoring event improved the correlations between the scoring events, at the animal level, by upwards of 0.10 across challenges. The utilisation of a transition matrix to transform low prevalence disease challenges by taking into account the natural biological rate of progression through the clinical stages of the disease provides a more accurate technique to account for variation in disease prevalence. The transition technique increases the acceptable range of disease expression targeted by producers when scoring virulent footrot challenges reducing the need for repeat scoring and allowing earlier treatment and reducing the impact of the disease on the host animal.

Thermal inactivation of Salmonella spp. in pork burger patties.

Predictive models, to estimate the reduction in Escherichia coli O157:H7 concentration in beef burgers, have been developed to inform risk management decisions; no analogous model exists for Salmonella spp. in pork burgers. In this study, "Extra Lean" and "Regular" fat pork minces were inoculated with Salmonella spp. (Salmonella 4,[5],12,i:-, Salmonella Senftenberg and Salmonella Typhimurium) and formed into pork burger patties. Patties were cooked on an electric skillet (to imitate home cooking) to one of seven internal temperatures (46, 49, 52, 55, 58, 61, 64 °C) and Salmonella enumerated. A generalised linear logistic regression model was used to develop a predictive model for the Salmonella concentration based on the internal endpoint temperature. It was estimated that in pork mince with a fat content of 6.1%, Salmonella survival will be decreased by -0.2407log10 CFU/g for a 1 °C increase in internal endpoint temperature, with a 5-log10 reduction in Salmonella concentration estimated to occur when the geometric centre temperature reaches 63 °C. The fat content influenced the rate of Salmonella inactivation (P=0.043), with Salmonella survival increasing as fat content increased, though this effect became negligible as the temperature approached 62 °C. Fat content increased the time required for patties to achieve a specified internal temperature (P=0.0106 and 0.0309 for linear and quadratic terms respectively), indicating that reduced fat pork mince may reduce the risk of salmonellosis from consumption of pork burgers. Salmonella serovar did not significantly affect the model intercepts (P=0.86) or slopes (P=0.10) of the fitted logistic curve. This predictive model can be applied to estimate the reduction in Salmonella in pork burgers after cooking to a specific endpoint temperature and hence to assess food safety risk.

In vitro and in vivo experiments with iron oxide nanoparticles functionalized with DEXTRAN or polyethylene glycol for medical applications: magnetic targeting.

In this research work, DEXTRAN- and polyethylene glycol (PEG)-coated iron-oxide superparamagnetic nanoparticles were synthetized and their cytotoxicity and biodistribution assessed. Well-crystalline hydrophobic Fe3 O4 SPIONs were formed by a thermal decomposition process with d = 18 nm and σ = 2 nm; finally, the character of SPIONs was changed to hydrophilic by a post-synthesis procedure with the functionalization of the SPIONs with PEG or DEXTRAN. The nanoparticles present high saturation magnetization and superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature, and the hydrodynamic diameters of DEXTRAN- and PEG-coated SPIONs were measured as 170 and 120 nm, respectively. PEG- and DEXTRAN-coated SPIONs have a Specific Power Absorption SPA of 320 and 400 W/g, respectively, in an ac magnetic field with amplitude of 13 kA/m and frequency of 256 kHz. In vitro studies using VERO and MDCK cell lineages were performed to study the cytotoxicity and cell uptake of the SPIONs. For both cell lineages, PEG- and DEXTRAN-coated nanoparticles presented high cell viability for concentrations as high as 200 µg/mL. In vivo studies were conducted using BALB/c mice inoculating the SPIONs intravenously and exposing them to the presence of an external magnet located over the tumour. It was observed that the amount of PEG-coated SPIONs in the tumor increased by up to 160% when using the external permanent magnetic as opposed to those animals that were not exposed to the external magnetic field.

A new quantitative method to determine the uptake of SPIONs in animal tissue and its application to determine the quantity of nanoparticles in the liver and lung of Balb-c mice exposed to the SPIONs.

We propose a new method for determining the quantity of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4, SPIONs) embedded in animal tissue using magnetization measurements. With this method, the smallest detectable quantity of magnetite nanoparticles in a tissue sample is -1 microg. We showed that this method has proved being efficient. In this study, we focused in determining the quantity of SPION confined in lung and liver tissue of mice injected with -13 nm magnetite superparamagnetic nanoparticles. Furthermore, the method allowed us to detect the magnetite nanoparticles present in animal tissues without letting the natural iron ions present in the tissue or blood interfere with the measurements.

MEMS and microfluidics for diagnostics devices.

There are conditions in clinical medicine demanding critical therapeutic decisions. These conditions necessitate accuracy, rapidity, accessibility, cost-effectiveness and mobility. New technologies have been developed in order to address these challenges. Microfluidics and Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems are two of such technologies. Microfluidics, a discipline that involves processing fluids at the microscale in etched microchannels, is being used to build lab- on-a-chip systems to run chemical and biological assays. These systems are being transformed into handheld devices designed to be used at remote settings or at the bedside. MEMS are microscale electromechanical elements integrated in lab chip systems or used as individual components. MEMS based sensors represents a highly developed field with successful commercialized products currently being incorporated into vitro,ex vivo and in vivo devices. In the present paper several examples of microfluidic devices and MEMS sensors are introduced together with some current examples of commercialized products. Future challenges and trends will be discussed.