Prof Andrew Rycroft

Some stakeholders in “The Walk” are from veterinary and agricultural settings. The use of antibiotics stems from non-humans is just as big if not more. (For more information on the Walk, please see the Talk and the Walk under global policies”.)

Our human practices research motivated our team to look into applications on other animals. What we found was that, excitingly, other animals do produce lipocalin.

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Fig. Phylogenetic tree of lipocalin 2 in various pets and livestock. The presence of these orthologues in a wide variety of organisms would indicate that this system may work in many different vertebrates

This means our device has potential application to animals and hopefully can address the issue of misusing antibiotics in the non-human health sector. To find out if this sector actually needs our device, we went to speak to Professor Andrew Rycroft at the Royal Veterinary College.

Firstly, we were interested to know from a veterinarian point of view if one would view the misuse of antibiotics is an issue.

The misuse of antibiotics is an issue in human health. Is it also an issue in agricultural and veterinary settings?

“Yes, it is. And you really got to seperate here companion animals, dogs, cats and possibly horses.. Those kinds of companion animals, you can think of them pretty much in the same way as human patients. Because the individual animal is taken to veterinary surgeons and indeed some veterinary surgeons will prescribe antibiotics irrespective of what’s wrong with the animals. Total misprescribing of antibiotics. Because they are thought of as being harmless and relatively cheap. In some cases, but not all by any means, will prescribe these drug when they are not really needed.”

“On the farm, it is completely different. Most antibiotics are used on farms’ pigs and poultry a little bit in cattle,but not very much and not very much in sheep or goats. Primarily pigs and poultry because they are the ones that their production suffers because of infectious disease.There is difference. Vets will prescribe for the entire herd and will leave behind bottles and sometimes boxes of bottles of antibiotics. Farmers will then use those drugs and they will misuse them because they have no idea what they are doing with them...

INTEGRATION INTO OUR PROJECT

We saw different perspectives in the antibiotic crisis. We were made aware of the distinction drawn between companion and farm animals. Potentially, companion animals could be end-users of our device. We also gained better understanding of antibiotic prescribing culture in veterinary practice on farms.

Next, we asked Professor Rycroft what would make a good device to a vet. Below sums up what Professor suggests for the design of our device.

INTEGRATION INTO OUR PROJECT

Practicality for Vets

An important consideration is the ability to analyse multiple blood sample/animals at once. For some infectious diseases like leptospirosis, to detect the antibody, sometimes a sample as big as 12 is needed.

Time

Production of a result should take under an hour.

Accuracy

The device must report an accurate result more than 80% of the time.

Portability

Small devices are workable, as long as the test involves no more than 2-3 steps.

Cost

Each test should be under £10.