National Academies Press: OpenBook

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop (2009)

Chapter: XVI Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine--David J. Spielman

« Previous: XV The Multilateral Initiative on Malaria: An Alliance to Enhance African Malaria Research--Barbara Sina
Suggested Citation:"XVI Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine--David J. Spielman." National Research Council. 2009. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12541.
×

XVI
Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine

David J. Spielman

International Food Policy Research Institute, Addis Ababa

ABSTRACT

Livestock plays a critical, but often overlooked, role in the livelihoods of small-scale, resource-poor households in the developing world. Of the 1.3 billion people living in absolute poverty worldwide, some 678 million of them are livestock keepers. Their holdings of cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, pigs, and poultry represent valuable stores of wealth while also serving as irreplaceable sources of income, insurance, fertilizer, energy, and nutrition.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the dependence on livestock is particularly acute among smallholders—a broad grouping that refers to small-scale farmers, pastoralists, and those whose livelihoods combine both crop cultivation and livestock keeping. Thus, livestock improvement is a potentially powerful means of promoting sustainable development and reducing poverty in the region.

This paper examines a research project designed to bring both public and private expertise to bear on the development of a vaccine for East Coast Fever (ECF), a devastating tick-borne bovine disease found throughout eastern, central, and southern Africa that is caused by the Theileria parva protozoa. Some 28 million cattle in the region are at risk of the disease, with at least 1 million cattle dying from it every year. In economic terms, the production losses caused by ECF-related morbidity and mortality are estimated at approximately US$300 million.

The project, headed by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Nairobi, Kenya, sought to develop an experimental

Suggested Citation:"XVI Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine--David J. Spielman." National Research Council. 2009. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12541.
×

multicomponent subunit vaccine against ECF that could be shown to be protective to cattle in laboratory trials. The project’s long-term goal was to generate a safe, efficacious affordable and easily deliverable ECF vaccine in partnership with a commercial company.

The key to success was identifying antigens that caused an immune response in the host cattle. This was to be pursued by sequencing the Theileria parva genome, cloning individual genes from the parasite, subjecting them to immunological assays, and determining which genes code for antigens are likely to confer immunity in the host cattle. The successful subunit vaccine would be one that incorporated sections of the Theileria parva DNA that, when injected into cattle, would confer immunity without infecting them with ECF.

Success required a range of expertise and resources. So, beginning in 1999, ILRI set out to develop a global partnership to sequence the Theileria parva and conduct research that would lead to the development of an effective subunit vaccine. Beginning in 2001, ILRI enlisted the participation of The Institute for Genome Research (U.S.A.), a global leader in genome sequencing, along with the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research, the University of Victoria (Canada), Oxford University (UK), the Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine (UK), the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. In the same year, ILRI enlisted the expertise of Merial Ltd., a global leader in the animal health field, to draw on the company’s experience in field of vaccine development and product deployment.

With Merial’s participation, the project team was able to develop an experimental vaccine. But while the testing with live cattle did generate the desired immune response—protection against ECF in cattle—the response occurred in only 30 percent of the cattle tested. Without this critical proof of concept, further partnership-based research effectively came to an end in 2007.

Despite these discouraging outcomes, research on an ECF vaccine continues. Under the leadership of the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed), efforts are underway to form a new consortium to continue to the research and secure funding.

Importantly, the project also generated several unintended consequences that will likely promote further research on an ECF vaccine. First, the project has encouraged several organizational innovations (e.g., new approaches to contracting, communicating, and intellectual property management) within ILRI and its partners to help bridge the gap between public and private sector researchers in future partnerships. Second, the project has put forth methodologies of vaccine antigen identification and evaluation that several research organizations are exploring, thus validating the project’s work and laying the ground for continued investment in ECF vaccine development.

Suggested Citation:"XVI Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine--David J. Spielman." National Research Council. 2009. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12541.
×

Third, the project has provided its partners with insights on how to better manage collaborative projects, including insights on when and how to end a project when it simply isn’t producing the desired results.

In summary, the ECF vaccine development partnership is a potentially replicable model for other public–private research collaborations. It represents an innovative response to complex problem-solving tasks that require engagement with a range of diverse organizations and capabilities. It also offers an invaluable lesson on when to terminate a project—a decision rarely taken lightly by researchers or investors.

Suggested Citation:"XVI Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine--David J. Spielman." National Research Council. 2009. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12541.
×

This page intentionally left blank.

Suggested Citation:"XVI Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine--David J. Spielman." National Research Council. 2009. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12541.
×
Page 99
Suggested Citation:"XVI Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine--David J. Spielman." National Research Council. 2009. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12541.
×
Page 100
Suggested Citation:"XVI Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine--David J. Spielman." National Research Council. 2009. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12541.
×
Page 101
Suggested Citation:"XVI Public-Private Partnerships and Pro-Poor Livestock Research: The Search for an East Coast Fever Vaccine--David J. Spielman." National Research Council. 2009. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12541.
×
Page 102
Next: XVII The Farm to Fork Initiative: A Shareholder and Management Partnership--LeRoy C. Paddock »
Enhancing the Effectiveness of Sustainability Partnerships: Summary of a Workshop Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $43.00 Buy Ebook | $34.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

Sustainable development--meeting human needs while nurturing and restoring the planet's life support systems--requires a continuous process of scientific innovation, new knowledge and learning, and collaborative approaches to implementing technologies and policies. To address these challenges, different stakeholder groups are increasingly seeking to ally themselves through partnership, in order to implement projects, deliver services, establish secure funding mechanisms, and achieve on the ground results. Advocates of this collaborative approach point to the failure of governmental regulations, international commitments, or business as usual. However, skeptics often question the effectiveness of partnerships at achieving sustainable development goals and, in the absence of demonstrated results, wonder where partnerships are adding value.

A symposium held in June 2008 and summarized in this volume, attempted to advance the dialogue on partnerships for sustainability in order to catalyze existing knowledge and inform future efforts. Ideas that came out of discussions at the symposium will help leaders in government, the private sector, foundations and NGOs, and universities, both in the United States and internationally, as they develop and participate in new partnerships for sustainability.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!