Participant 2 University of Pelotas (BR) Odir Dellagostin

Institution and Expertise
The Biotechnology Centre, Federal University of Pelotas is dedicated mainly to Agriculture and livestock research. It has a close association with the Veterinary School, what allows the use of all the School's facilities for doing experiments with farm animals. The Veterinary School has a farm dedicated to research and teaching activities. Developing vaccines for veterinary use has been one of the main interests of our group. As a result, a vaccine against bovine keratoconjunctivitis has been developed by Dr Gil Turnes and has been licensed to a commercial company. A vaccine against swine diarrhoea is currently under development using different approaches: naked DNA and recombinant BCG technology. The Biotechnology Centre has well equipped laboratories and highly qualified personnel. Research projects have been funded by the Brazilian Government and by international agencies like WHO and The Wellcome Trust among others.

(ii) Personnel involved -
· Dr. Odir A. Dellagostin: Veterinary graduate and molecular biologist.
· Dr. José A. G. Aleixo: Head of the Applied Immunology laboratory. Expert in immune assays and in evaluation of immune response in animals.
· Dr. Carlos Gil Turnes: Bacteriologist with large experience in vaccine development and production.
· Dr. Maria Elisabeth Aires Berne, a parasitologist with experience in the biology and immunology of Fasciola hepatica.
· Mr. Reginaldo Gaspar Bastos: Postgraduate student with experience in rBCG technology.
· Post-doctoral researcher to be appointed.

Ongoing projects and previous collaboration
Dr. Dellagostin has been working with rBCG technology since finishing his Ph.D in Dr. McFadden's laboratory in 1994. A close association has been established between the two through a collaborative project funded by The Wellcome Trust for the development of rBCG-based vaccine for porcine disease. Dr. Dellagostin has also been working in collaboration with Dr Armoa (Partner No4) and Dr. Leite (Partner No2) in the development of rBCG-based vaccines for human use, and with Dr Cataldi (Partner No5) for cloning Foot-and-Mouth Desease Virus antigens in BCG.

(iii) Five relevant publications/patents
Dellagostin OA, Wall S, O'Shaghnessy T, McFadden JJ, Dale JW. Construction and use of integrative vectors to express foreign genes in mycobacteria. Molecular Microbiol. 10, 983-993, 1993
Dale JW, Dellagostin AO, Norman E, Barret ADT, McFadden JJ. Multivalent BCG vaccines. O'Hagan, D.T. ed, Novel Delivery Systems for Oral Vaccine Development, pp. 87-109, London, 1994
Norman E, Dellagostin OA, McFadden JJ, Dale JW. Gene replacement by homologous recombination in Mycobacterium bovis BCG. Molecular Microbiol. 16:769-777, 1995.
Dellagostin OA, Esposito G, Eales LJ, Dale JW ,McFadden JJ. Activity of mycobacterial promoters during intracellular and extracellular growth. Microbiology. 141:1785-1792, 1995.
Gil-Turnes C., Aleixo JAG., Monteiro AV., Dellagostin OA. DNA inoculation with a plasmid vector carrying the faeG adhesin gene of Escherichia coli K88ab induced immune responses in mice and pigs. Vaccine 17:2089-2095, 1999.