£750,000 for agri-food research awarded

The Department of Agriculture Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has announced that £750,000 of new funding has been awarded to three agri-food research projects.
By The Newsroom
Published 10th Oct 2018, 06:39 BST
Dr. David Simpson, Centre for Experimental Medicine QUB, Dr. Irina Tikhonova, School of Pharmacy QUB, Alistair Carson, Director of Science Evidence and Innovation Policy at DAERA and Dr. Mark Mooney, Institute for Global Food Security QUB. Photography by Andrew Towe, Parkway Photography.Dr. David Simpson, Centre for Experimental Medicine QUB, Dr. Irina Tikhonova, School of Pharmacy QUB, Alistair Carson, Director of Science Evidence and Innovation Policy at DAERA and Dr. Mark Mooney, Institute for Global Food Security QUB. Photography by Andrew Towe, Parkway Photography.
Dr. David Simpson, Centre for Experimental Medicine QUB, Dr. Irina Tikhonova, School of Pharmacy QUB, Alistair Carson, Director of Science Evidence and Innovation Policy at DAERA and Dr. Mark Mooney, Institute for Global Food Security QUB. Photography by Andrew Towe, Parkway Photography.

This builds upon the 2016 award of £250,000 to the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute.

The new funding, awarded to research teams within Queen’s University Belfast, will support collaborative projects that have been successful under the US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership Programme Agricultural Call 2017.

The three projects are as follows:

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- Improved Animal husbandry through Inhibition of Microbial Bile Salt Hydrolase – Queen’s University Belfast in partnership with University College Cork and University of Tennessee.

- Targeted genome editing to enhance genetic resistance to Mycobacterium bovis infection in domestic cattle populations – Queen’s University Belfast in partnership with University College Cork and Acceligen/Recombinetics, Inc.

- Development and validation of an on-farm, electronic disease diagnosis platform for cattle – Queen’s University Belfast in partnership with University College Cork and Georgia Institute of Technology.

DAERA has been working in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) in the Republic of Ireland and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to identify opportunities to co-fund research in areas of shared strategic priority.

Collaboration and co-operation will help to expedite solutions to some of the global challenges and opportunities facing agriculture and will boost local research and expertise to meet the needs of Northern Ireland’s agri-food sector.