devinitorg/iati-policy-markers huggingface dataset:
Indo-UK Centre for the improvement of Nitrogen use Efficiency in Wheat (INEW) Wheat is the most important staple crop grown in the UK, and one of the two major crops grown in India. Nitrogen fertiliser is a key determinant of yield and the major cost of wheat production in both countries and excessive application can result in pollution of groundwater and increased production of greenhouse gases. Breeders and farmers in the UK and India have worked hard to improve the efficiency of use of applied nitrogen, by improving the uptake and utilization efficiency within the crop through genetic improvement, together with the precision of fertilizer application in the field. However, further improvements are required to face the challenges of increasing crop production for an expanding global population with increasing uncertainty of climate. Both yield and quality attributes are dependent upon nitrogen inputs and need to be incorporated into economic and sustainable solutions.  We will therefore bring together the major UK and Indian wheat researchers with programmes on wheat improvement to determine the genetic control of nitrogen use efficiency in wheat. These comprise scientists from five Universities and Institutes in the UK and from six in New Delhi, Haryana and the Punjab, which is the major wheat-producing area of India. The studies will focus on comparisons of wheat lines and populations which differ in their nitrogen use efficiency. These lines will be grown in field experiments in both countries and studied in detail using a range of biochemical and molecular genetic approaches. This will lead to the identification of genes and molecular markers that can be exploited by wheat breeders globally, and to new strategies for improving the precision of nitrogen application which will delivered to farmers via well-established mechanisms in both countries.   Furthermore, since similar mechanisms are expected to determine nitrogen use efficiency in other plant species the results should be of wider applicability to other crops and countries. In addition to supporting a closely integrated research programme in the UK and India, the Centre will also provide a legacy of shared facilities, technologies, genetic material and datasets that will facilitate longer term bilateral collaborations, and provide training in crop genetics and genomics and exchanges for early career scientists and students in both countries. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.
RCUK-CONICYT Mucosal health and microbiota during sea lice parasitism: effect of oral delivery of immunomodulants The mucosal surfaces (skin, intestine and gills) of fish are constantly interacting with a wide range of pathogens and, in concert with the resident mucosal microbiota, are the first line of host defence. Several immune factors have been described in fish mucus and their presence and abundance can be affected by pathogen infection. As a consequence, the mucosa-associated microbiota can be affected and this may lead to dysbiosis, a microbial imbalance on or inside the body, which reduces the beneficial role of microbiota on the innate immune system and may lead to secondary infections by opportunistic microbes. Sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis and Caligus spp.) infections are the most economically important causative agents of disease in marine-farmed salmonids worldwide. Caligus rogercresseyi is the main ectoparasite affecting the Chilean salmon industry with estimated costs of up to $120 million annually. This parasite damages external surfaces of the integument providing portal of entry for secondary infectious pathogens, and infected fish also become stressed which leads to immunosuppression with consequent increased susceptibility to the secondary infections. Other Caligid parasites (Caligus rogercresseyi and other Caligus spp.) have detrimental impacts on mariculture  operations in both developing and developed parts of the world which causes economic losses of US$ 100's millions annually. The development of novel methods to prevent or reduce sea lice infection is therefore a high priority for the industry. An essential prerequisite for improved treatments strategies is a better understanding of relationship between host-microbiome-parasite at the epidermal interface. Therefore, the aim of this research programme is to evaluate the influence of sea lice parasitism on mucosal health, including aspects of the immune response and host microbiota. We will evaluate the effect of immunomodulants on susceptibility to sea lice infection, and on gut and mucus quality by determining epidermal mucus proteomic responses, microbiota changes and mucosal transcriptomic changes. We will correlate the responses of the host and the sea lice during the early stages of parasitism in order to develop new strategies (i.e. identify antigens for vaccines, targets for RNAi, probiotics, prebiotics, immunomodulants) for sea ice control. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.
Newton Bhabha Industrial Waste BIOREVIEW BIOREVIEW is a biorefining collaboration between industry and academics in UK and India that aims to develop novel industrial biotechnology (IB) processes to produce value added products from waste streams of the Indian sugar industry. The pilot scale (TRL 4-6) IB solutions will process sugar cane bagasse (SCB) and spent wash (SW) at sufficient quantities to demonstrate viable economic opportunities and waste management options through the development of a bio-product portfolio. This involves demonstrating bio-production of higher value volatile fatty acids (VFAs), xylitol and microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) for the agri, food and pharmaceutical sectors. The scalable IB procedures offer improved environmental sustainability options over conventional manufacture and use membrane technology to increase the product value alongside a novel high productivity IB process for xylitol production from SCB. Delivery of a validated integrated biorefining process design evaluated for its economic, social and environmental benefits will inform diversification strategies and investment plans of the Indian sugarcane industry for commercial production of these commodities from waste streams. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.
Understanding evolution of fungicide resistance in wheat blast field populations in Brazil; can we learn lessons for future disease management? Some diseases are becoming very difficult to control due to lack of host resistance and limited availability of crop protection products. Resistance, tighter regulations and a slowing pipeline of new products are reducing the range of available chemical classes. This has lead to a greater dependence of compounds with fewer modes of action and, subsequently, increases the selective pressure for further cases of resistance. In order to increase the shelf life of new and currently available actives, evolution-smart integrated pest management strategies are needed. This project will focus on the plant pathogen Pyricularia graminis-tritici (Pygt), the causal agent of wheat blast, an important fungal disease in Brazil that is very difficult to control, with several groups of fungicides (e.g. sterol demethylase, quinone outside and succinate dehydrogenase inhibitors) having become ineffective. Wheat blast has been a major disease across central and southern Brazil and was first described in Paraná State in 1985. Following the emergence of wheat blast in Bangladesh in 2016, it has further spread into India in 2017.  These Asian strains are the same as that of Brazil due to contaminated seed import, and the disease is expected to move into Pakistan, South East Asia and Africa and is expected to impact food security, welfare and economic growth of millions of undernourished people. To improve disease control, a better understanding of the epidemiology, the fungicide sensitivity status and disease management strategies are needed. In this project we will focus on all three aspects using the lastest spore trapping technology, fungicide pheno- and genotyping assays as well as a fungicide target protein expression system, enabling to investigate the impact of target mutations on enzyme function and fungicide binding. These tools are generic and can be applied for other plant pathogens. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.
Bovine Mastitis Control by Local Administration of Polyplex Nanoparticles There are millions of cases of mastitis annually. Mastitis can linger, and often recurrent signs often follow acute infection. Rates of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus are high in mastitis isolates from Brazil.  The situation calls for better control, including hygiene practices that kill "protected" pathogens, where protection is conferred by antimicrobial resistance and by the ability of common mastitis pathogens to "hide" from antimicrobials within biofilms and host cells.  These challenges inspired us to test the potential use of a micro-biocidal polymer to kill antimicrobial resistant, biofilm and intracellular forms of S. aureus. Our preliminary (in vitro) results are promising and have prompted this research proposal, which aims to develop a novel anti-mastitis technology for practical applications on the Brazilian and global dairy farms. In this project, we will test the effectiveness of the approach as a teat disinfectant on teat samples obtained from abattoirs. We are hopeful that the results will help to guide us towards the development of an improved teat-dip control for mastitis, and in the longer term an improved therapy. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.
Development of live attenuated vaccine candidates for Newcastle Disease Virus The farming of poultry and production of eggs is of growing economic importance to Thailand, as well as other countries in the region, but like all livestock industries, animal production is susceptible to disruption by outbreaks of infectious disease. Newcastle Disease Virus is a major pathogen of birds and causes significant economic losses in first world and developing countries, requiring widespread slaughter policies for control. Although Thailand has remained free from NDV since 2014, neighbouring countries have suffered NDV outbreaks; Thai exports of poultry have correspondingly increased. Keeping flocks free from NDV is thus of paramount importance. Available vaccines are not very effective at protecting birds against genotype VII NDV currently circulating in regions of Asia and elsewhere. In this proposal we aim to use our knowledge of the avian innate immune response to engineer a genotype VII virus to be incapable of evading host innate immunity (specifically the interferon system) and therefore generate a lead candidate for a live attenuated vaccine. Our approach has several interdependent phases: We will initially analyse the properties of the "V" protein of a highly pathogenic ("velogenic") genotype VII NDV as an antagonist of interferon induction or the interferon response and compare this with the "V" protein of an apathogenic ("lentogenic") strain. We will identify key host target proteins that are signalling molecules involved in the interferon system and which interact with the V proteins, and we will validate the importance of these proteins in avian innate immunity using in vitro assays. We will characterise the V/host interactions at the molecular level and will identify V determinants that are essential for interactions. We will then engineer both lentogenic and velogenic (genotype VII) strains of NDV to express altered V proteins that cannot interact with the key host target proteins and by extension which render the virus unable to evade host innate immunity. We will test for attenuation of these viruses by experimental infections in chickens, and we will determine whether this correlates with a failure to block interferon induction or enhanced interferon sensitivity in vivo. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.
Large scale dynamic integration of proteomics and genomics to support next-generation rice research Rice can be considered the most important worldwide crop for human nutrition, currently providing ~20% of worldwide daily dietary energy. Due to a growing worldwide population, and the effects of climate change, research into improvements in rice yield, resilience to drought and resistance to pathogens is urgently needed. Such research must be underpinned by public databases storing high-quality information about the rice genome, genetic variants carried by varieties with desirable traits, and information about the function of each gene/protein. This project is a collaboration between research teams based at the University of Liverpool, the Beijing Institute of Genomics and the BGI Education Centre. Our teams have considerable track record in the development of methods for studying the abundance of genes (transcriptomics) and proteins (proteomics) on a large scale for rice and other species, as well as computational approaches for interpreting and integrating data from these different techniques.   At present, the public databases storing the rice genome and information known about gene/protein function are disconnected from experimental data (transcriptomics/proteomics) being collected in laboratories all over the world. These experimental data can be used directly to improve the annotation of the genome, by showing how strongly particular genes or proteins are expressed under particular growth conditions or for a given rice variety (which gives clues as to functional importance). These data also show how genes or proteins differ in a given variety from the "reference" genome contained in the database. Our groups are developing software tools for integrating and analysing these data in new ways, so that when laboratories submit their data to a public repository, it can be directly integrated and viewed alongside the genome - which at present is not possible. We are also going to generate and analyse new data sets for several important rice varieties, so we can study how these gene and protein sequences differ from the reference genome.  Our results will help to improve the sequences and annotation of rice genes and proteins, and will be made easily available to all other rice researchers through the most widely accessed international public databases. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.
UK-China Agritech Challenge: Aquaculture 4.0 -- Advancing Digital Precision Aquaculture in China (ADPAC) The project aims to advance digital precision aquaculture in China towards "Aquaculture 4.0", which is a highly connected and automated cyber-human-physical system using digital technologies. Aquaculture production in China reached 45.5 million tonnes in 2014 (60%+ of world's production, UN FAO). The grand challenge is the extremely low production efficiency, leading to high labour intensity, high energy/water consumption and environment pollution. Innovation is urgently needed for a transformation to digital industrialised aquaculture. The proposal is a timely response to the needs; it will apply and integrate the latest technologies of advanced sensors, 5G-based Internet of Things, Big Data analytics and automation to pilot highly digital precision aquaculture in China. The system is expected to deliver 10-fold increase in production efficiency. The project will open new business opportunities, gaining a competitive advantage by entering the Chinese market at this critical time and by partnering with the key innovators in Chinese aquaculture represented in this consortium. The solution will be also applicable to aquaculture worldwide opening up additional revenue stream. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.
Discovery and characterization of swine host factors required to support swine influenza virus replication. Infection of pigs with influenza viruses is a problem both for animal and human health. Swine influenza virus infections cause production losses and can predispose to more serious complications leading to loss of stock. Moreover infections of pigs by avian influenza viruses can pre-empt the emergence of a novel influenza virus that infects humans. Indeed the last influenza pandemic in 2009 had its most recent origin in pigs. Pork is an important protein source for the developed and developing world. China is a major pig producer, where pigs are reared in large holdings under sometimes crowded conditions; a perfect breeding ground for the evolution and emergence of new strains of virus.  The high population in China, its geography and its climate make it a hotspot for emergence of influenza viruses.  One future solution to these threats is to employ recent developments in gene editing to make a pig that is resistant to infection with influenza viruses. This is not so far-fetched; indeed, pigs resistant to another pig virus called PRRS were recently generated. However, in order to apply the breakthrough to the influenza problem we need to identify which genes in the pigs should be altered  to stop the virus from being able to infect, and then define precisely how to alter them so that there is as little disruption to the meat production and breeding capacity in the edited animals. We will identify the pig genes that are co-opted by swine influenza viruses to support their replication using a novel screening method, in pig cells with authentic swine influenza viruses typical of those circulating in China today. Then we will employ another novel screening method to work out the least changes we can make in the pig gene in order to stop the virus from infecting, because we reason this minimalistic and precise editing strategy will be the most acceptable to consumers and farmers alike. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.
Application of novel soil management technologies for poverty alleviation of traditional rural communities and enhanced environmental health of the Am The management farmers apply to their land has a significant impact on the health of the surrounding environment and the socio-economic wellbeing of the farmer and their family. A previous Newton Fund project (NUCLEUS) focused on enhancing Nitrogen (an essential plant & soil element) Use Efficiency identified a suite of novel practices, well suited to smallholder famers in northern Brazil, which increased the sustainability and productivity of the tropical agri-systems with low natural fertility. Here we intend to disseminate this new approach more widely which makes use of a variety of ecosystems services to increase crop productivity and soil nutrient use efficiency. These include i) the adoption of a new soil management system (no-till) where farmers avoid the disturbance of soil created by ploughing to retain soil organic matter allowing a more natural, effective soil structure to develop; ii) incorporation of advantageous soil amendments (e.g. leguminous biomass (which adds Nitrogen) and gypsum (which improves soil structure and hence deep rooting); and iii) introducing leguminous trees which enhance soil nutrient cycling and provide added value as a harvestable good. This new approach minimises soil degradation, facilitating repeated cropping of the same area thus removing the need for unnecessary shifting cultivation systems, which have contributed so significantly to deforestation, environmental degradation and poverty via rural to urban migration. To date we have validated this system in partnership with a small network of traditional communities in Maranhao, Brazil by trials on their farms. Now we intend to expand this via knowledge exchange, community events and outreach activities through establishment of new Diffusion Centres (i.e. exemplar farms). By surpassing the barriers which hinder technology uptake by the farmers in the rural community of central-north of Maranhão, we estimate c.150,000 rural families livelihoods can be improved. The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.