Declan McKeever
|
|
Declan is Chair of Immunoparasitology and Head of the Pathology and Infectious Diseases department. He is also research active in the area of tick-borne diseases of livestock.
Biography
Declan graduated in 1980 with a veterinary degree from University College Dublin, where he then undertook a one year internship in surgery. Following this, he spent a year in small animal practice in Essex, before commencing a PhD in the immune responses of sheep to orf virus at the Moredun Research Institute in Edinburgh.
In 1986, he took up post as a Postdoctoral Scientist at the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases, (ILRAD – now ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya. Here, he continued his immunological work, using lymphatic canulation techniques to look at immune responses of cattle to Theileria parva. Declan continued his work in this field in various roles until returning to the Moredun Research Institute in 1999 as a joint Chair of Veterinary Clinical Sciences with the University of Edinburgh.
In May 2007, Declan joined the Royal Veterinary College as Chair of Immunoparasitology and took up post as Head of the Pathology and Infectious Diseases Department in January 2008. The PID department delivers all of the paraclinical undergraduate and postgraduate teaching at the College. It also conducts research to international standards and provides specialist diagnostic facilities.
Research
For the bulk of his research career, Declan's main interest has been the protozoan Theileria parva, which is a tick-borne parasite of cattle that causes a disease known as East Coast Fever. His work has addressed the immune mechanisms responsible for protection against T. parva with a view to identifying the parasite antigens responsible for provoking them.
He is currently working on population diversity of the parasite and how this is influenced by the host immune response. In addition to other Theileria parasites of livestock, he is also interested in the control of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia in sub-Saharan Africa. Some projects with which he is currently involved are listed below:
Defra/HEFCE/SHEFC Veterinary Training and Research Initiative (VTRI): Integration of functional genomics and immunology and their application to infectious disease in ruminants 2004-2009 (Moredun Research Institute collaborator with Drs David Smith and John Huntley; grant held by Profs Hugh Miller, Ivan Morrison, University of Edinburgh) Total funding £5,443,291.
BBSRC/Defra/SEERAD Combating Viral Disease of Livestock Initiative: Immunological Toolbox 2004-2008 (Moredun Research collaborator with Drs Gary Entrican and Colin McInnes; Grant held by Dr Jim Kaufman, Institute for Animal Health) Total funding £868,000.
Wellcome Trust project grant: Host immunity and vector diversity as modulators of the population structure of Theileria parva parasites 2005-2008 (with Dr. A.R. Walker, University of Edinburgh) £317,320.
Wellcome Trust Animal Health in the Developing World Initiative. A genomics approach to understanding the immunopathology of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP): improvement of current vaccines and the development of next generation vaccines 2005-2010 (Principal Investigator with Drs Evans Taracha, Hezron Wesonga, Benedict Lema and Professor Joachim Frey) £1,500,000.
Wellcome Trust Animal Health in the Developing World Initiative. An integrated approach for the development of sustainable methods to control tropical theileriosis. 2005-2009.(Co-applicant with Profs Ivan Morrison, Dirk Dobbelaere, Andrew Tait, Drs Graham Medley, Evans Taracha, Mohammed Darghouth, Brian Shiels, Elizabeth Glass, Gordon Langsley and Tulin Karagenc) £2,500,000.
Teaching
Declan delivers lectures on T. parva for the BSc course in Veterinary pathology. He also has two PhD students working on CBPP, who are registered with the University of Edinburgh.
Selected Publications
McKeever, D.J., Taracha, E.L.N., Innes, E.A., MacHugh, N.D., Awino, E., Goddeeris, and Morrison, W.I. (1994) Adoptive transfer of immunity to Theileria parva in the CD8+ fraction of responding efferent lymph. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 91, 1959-1963.
McKeever,D.J., Nyanjui, J. and Ballingall, K.T. (1997) Cytokine gene expression in bovine lymphocytes transformed by Theileria parva: constitutive expression of IL10 may be associated with the failure of naive cattle to respond appropriately. Parasite Immunology, 19, 319-324.
McKeever, D.J., Taracha, E.L.N., Morrison, W.I., Musoke, A.J. and Morzaria, S.P. (1999) Protective immune mechanisms against Theileria parva: evolution of vaccine development strategies. Parasitology Today 15, 263-267.
Ballingall, K.T., Rowlands, J., Luyai, A., Musoke, A.J., Morzaria, S.P. and McKeever, D.J. (2004) BoLA class II MHC alleles DRB*2201 and DRB*2703 significantly increase the level of subunit vaccine induced protection to Theileria parva challenge. Infection and Immunity, 72, 2738-2741.
Pain, A., Renauld, H., Berriman, M., Murphy, L., Yeats, C.A., Weir, W., Kerhornou, A., Aslett, M., Bishop, R., Bouchier, C., Cochet, M., Coulson, R.M.R., Cronin, A., de Villiers, E., Fraser, A., Fosker, N., Gardner, M., Goble, A., Griffiths-Jones, S., Harris, D.E., Katzer, F., Larke, N., Lord, A., Maser, P., McKellar, S., Mooney, P., Morton, F., Nene, V., O’Neil, S., Price, C., Quail, M.A., Rabbinowitsch, E., Rawlings, N.D., Rutter, S., Saunders, D., Seeger, K., Shah, T., Squares, R., Squares, S., Tivey, A., Walker, A.R., Woodward, J., Dobbelaere, D.A.E., Langsley, G., Rajandream, M.A., McKeever, D., Shiels, B., Tait, A., Barrell, B., Hall, N. (2005) The genome of the host-cell trans-forming parasite Theileria annulata and a comparison with T. parva. Science 309, 131-133.
Katzer, F., Ngugi, D., Oura, C.A, Bishop, R.P., Taracha, E.L.N., Walker, A.R. and McKeever, D.J. (2006) Extensive genotypic diversity in a recombining population of the apicomplexan parasite Theileria parva. Infection and Immunity, 74, 5456-5464.
Rocchi, M, Ballingall, K.T., MacHugh, N.D. and McKeever, D.J. (2006) The kinetics of Theileria parva infection and lymphocyte transformation in vitro. International Journal of Parasitology 36, 771-778.
McKeever, D.J. (2006) Theileria parva and the bovine CTL response: down but not out? Parasite Immunology 28, 339-345.
Katzer, F., Ngugi, D., Schnier, S., Walker, A.R. and McKeever, D.J. (2007) Theileria parva: host immunity as a driver for parasite diversity. Infection and Immunity 75, 4909-4916.