East Coast Fever (ECF) is a disease of cattle in eastern, central, and southern African countries cause by a eukaryotic parasite called Theileria parva. This parasite is somewhat related to the parasite that causes malarai (Plasmodium), as shown in the picture below. ECF is a serious economic issue in endemic regions, as it kills >1 million cattle per year, costing farmers over $300 million USD equivalent. I am part of an international consortium of scientists from around the world trying to create a recombinant vaccine against this disease using reverse vaccinology, a combination of bioinformatics and high-throughput systems immunology methods that filters and screen large sets of polypeptides, searching for the best vaccine candidate(s).
Project web site:
http://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/livestock/news/consortium-to-develop-new-east-coast-fever-vaccine.html
