Farm-Scape is sponsored by Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork Play Audio Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.

Farm-Scape, Episode 1366

The Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization says its new 18 million dollar research laboratory is allowing a dramatic expansion of its research capabilities.

VIDO's new 50 thousand square foot state-of-the-art research facility, located on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, was officially opened last week.

The new building includes three floors of office and laboratory space as well as a conference centre in the basement.

VIDO Director Dr. Lorne Babiuk says it's allowed the addition of people and equipment.

"The old building was built for a capacity of about 50 people but we had 85 people in it and we've already expanded to 135 people.

We just didn't have enough space to be able to accommodate the number of people we needed and the equipment we needed to continue making significant inroads into the science of genomics and vaccine development.

We're looking at more genomic technology and that's looking at which genes are turned on in the animals when they're infected and, if we take particular drugs or vaccines, how can we improve the efficacy of these by looking at the genes that are turned on.

That's really an expansion of what we were doing but we do it faster and better now. Another aspect we are expanding on is developing novel delivery systems to be able to deliver vaccines and drugs to animals without needles and making these more effective that way."

Dr. Babiuk says, over the past numbers of years, VIDO has been capitalizing on its discoveries in animal health to also benefit human health and the new facility will allow an expansion of those linkages between animal and human health.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.