Collaborating for a Healthier Future. AVANT partners with leading research institutions, industry experts, and policymakers to drive innovation in sustainable livestock farming. Together, we are working to reduce antibiotic use and improve animal health.
University of Copenhagen (UCPH)
UCPH is one of the largest institutions of research and education in the Nordic countries. It has approximately 39,000 students and 9,000 employees, of whom 5,000 are researchers. To date UCPH participates participates in 376 Horizon 2020 projects. The Department participating in AVANT is the Department of Veterinary Disease Biology, which employs more than 300 people. Research focuses on animal and zoonotic infections, with AMR and alternatives to antimicrobials being two major research lines. The department hosts the UCPH Research Centre for Control of Antibiotic Resistance (UC-Care). UC-Care research aims at generating new knowledge and solutions for enhanced diagnostics and antibiotic therapy of bacterial infections through One Health intersectoral collaboration between the human and the veterinary sector.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Luca Guardabassi, Peter Rekve
Affiliation: Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences
Website: https://ivh.ku.dk/english/
UC-Care: https://uc-care.ku.dk/english/
Complutense University of Madrid (UCM)
The UCM is one of the largest and oldest Universities in Europe, with more than 90,000 students. The Department of Animal Health includes 60 staff members, and is involved in multidisciplinary aspects of animal health, including viral, fungal and bacterial infectious diseases. Research in antimicrobial resistance is the most important activity of this department including coordination of national and international projects and teaching of official master degrees including ‘bases of research in veterinary sciences’, ‘food- safety’ and ‘zoonotic diseases’.
The Gonzalez Zorn group at the UCM works on multidisciplinary research and evolution of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) since it was created, and works with human, animal, food and environmental microbiologists to unravel the molecular bases of spread of antimicrobial resistance genes and platforms. It is further associated to VISAVET, the Institute for Public Health in UCM., that leads, among others, the National centre for Antimicrobial resistance or the European reference Lab for Animal TB. Further, a Large Animal P-3 husbandry facility is on site and internationally certified. In AVANT, UCM participates in several work packages and leads one of them (WP3), where they will perform all preclinical experiments (WP3), and the clinical experiments (WP5) related to immunomodulators.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Bruno Gonzalez Zorn, DVM
Affiliation: Department of Animal Health, Complutense University of Madrid
Cooperl (COOP)
Cooperl is the leading French cooperative of pig producer with 2,700 members, 7,000 employees and a full control of the pork chain “from farm to fork”. COOP has a unique 360° approach in the sector (breeding, genetics, health, feed, environment, equipment, slaughtering and processing) which guarantees a reliable traceability, food safety, animal welfare, and environmental respect to satisfy our 13 million consumers.
Since 1990, health progress is powered by an intensive research and technical program to reduce the use of antimicrobial in pig farms and to combat antimicrobial resistance. In 2020, there are over 20% COOP members who no longer use antibiotics from piglet birth. To further promote animal health, COOP is involved in the project AVANT to assess promising innovative strategies on clinical efficacy under field conditions and to evaluate the reduction of antimicrobial use.
Contact: Mathieu Gloaguen
Affiliation: Cooperl Innovation S.A.S.
Website: https://www.cooperl.com/
dsm-firmenich (BIOMIN)
At BIOMIN Holding GmbH, we harness the power of science to support animal health and performance. By applying state-of-the-art and proprietary technology we deliver natural, sustainable and profitable solutions to the livestock industry. For over 30 years we have pioneered innovative solutions for mycotoxin risk management and gut performance. As a vital component of dsm-firmenich’s Animal Nutrition & Health (ANH) division, we contribute to a wide array of essential products, performance solutions, and precision services for the livestock industry.
As innovators in nutrition, health, and beauty, dsm-firmenich reinvents, manufactures, and combines vital nutrients, flavors, and fragrances for the world’s growing population to thrive. With our comprehensive range of solutions, with natural and renewable ingredients and renowned science and technology capabilities, we work to create what is essential for life, desirable for consumers, and more sustainable for the planet. dsm-firmenich is a Swiss-Dutch company, listed on the Euronext Amsterdam, with operations in almost 60 countries and revenues of more than €12 billion. With a diverse, worldwide team of nearly 30,000 employees, we bring progress to life™ every day, everywhere, for billions of people.
Within the AVANT consortium, BIOMIN is involved in the development and testing of gut microbiome modulators, optimising feed additives to prevent post-weaning diarrhoea on the basis of synbiotic products.
Contact: Dr. Veronika Nagl & Dr. Verity-Ann Sattler
Affiliation: BIOMIN Holding GmbH
Website: https://www.dsm-firmenich.com/corporate/businesses/animal-nutrition-health.html
Easy AgriCare (EA)
Easy AgriCare is a Danish owned SME developing and producing innovative feed additives, bedding materials and occupational products based upon natural occurring raw materials. The products are marketed in Denmark and internationally to customers within the agricultural sector. The research focus is to gather proof of concept of post-weaning diarrhoea in weaners employing specific bacteriophage as an economically, environmentally and societal sustainable alternative to antibiotics and zinc oxide.
Easy AgriCare will contribute with their experience in developing and producing in-house innovative animal feed additives like fibers to improve intestinal health. It will provide the initial phage formulation developed in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen (BioPIGLET project) and will advise the partners on how to address the market’s needs.
Contact: Lars Sørensen, CEO; Jesper Ortmann, Production Manager
Affiliation: Easy AgriCare AS
Website: http://easy-agricare.dk/DK.aspx
Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE)
FVE is the European umbrella organisation for veterinarians in Europe. Founded in 1975, FVE now represents 46 national veterinary organisations in 38 European countries, including all EU Member States. FVE also includes 4 international Sections, each of which represents key groups within the veterinary profession: practitioners (UEVP), hygienists (UEVH), state veterinary officers (EASVO) and veterinarians in education, research and industry (EVERI). Through its member organisations, FVE represents around 300.000 veterinarians throughout Europe. The mission of FVE is to promote animal health, animal welfare and public health across Europe.
Together with its members, FVE aims to support veterinarians in delivering their professional responsibilities at the best possible level, recognised and valued by society. It strives to create optimal conditions for veterinarians to care for animal health and welfare as well as for veterinary public health. Many veterinarians, in many different positions such as practitioners, policy officers, teachers and research workers etc., typically work at the human-animal interface. In addition to providing services to animal keepers for the prevention and control of animal diseases, they also play an essential role in the detection, monitoring, surveillance and reporting of transmissible diseases. Moreover, they play a crucial role in the communication between policy makers and scientists and the general public about striking the balance between the benefits and risks associated with living in close contact with animals.
FVE is fully committed to the “One Health” concept aiming at further integrating the protection of the health of Animals, people and the environment. FVE is actively involved in the fight against antimicrobial resistance, and in 2016, the Federation was shortlisted for the EU Health Award “Fighting Antimicrobial Resistance”. FVE specific role in the project is to contribute to activities within the work package on dissemination, exploitation and communication (WP8 DEC).
Contact: Yael Dotan, DVM
Affiliation: Federation of Veterinarians of Europe, Non-Profit-Organisation (Association Nr. 0851035537)
Website: https://www.fve.org/
KLIFOVET (KFV)
KLIFOVET, based in Munich, Germany, is a regulatory consultancy and clinical research organization for veterinary products founded in 1997. It is a service provider with >40 staff. The ISO 9001:2015 certified organization provides the following services: evaluation of research projects for eligibility for development as animal health products, regulatory consultancy including life cycle management and PhV, management of preclinical and clinical studies, quality assurance, data management and GMP compliant Clinical Supplies services. KFV is experienced in all species and manages the development of Veterinary Medicinal Products as well as Feed and Feed Additives from early research to marketing authorisation.
KFV’s contribution to the AVANT project is to provide regulatory consultancy and support to the different working groups, in particular by evaluating the candidates and selecting the most promising candidates for development, determining a goal-oriented strategy for the registration of the candidates, supporting the selection of acceptable claims and study planning and reporting while assuring the principles of animal welfare.
Contact: Dr.med.vet. Klaus Hellmann, MD, EOQ Auditor, Dipl. ECVPT
Affiliation: KLIFOVET
Website: https://www.klifovet.com
The Royal Veterinary College (RVC)
RVC is a leading veterinary research centre and research at the College is of international quality. The last Research Assessment Exercise ranked us as England’s best veterinary school, among institutions whose research is exclusively related to veterinary science. Our approach extends from the molecular level to the whole animal or population of animals. Underpinning research across these themes are animal welfare, biomechanics, genetics, bioinformatics, pathology and epidemiology and public health. RVC’s background and expertise in the microbiology, pharmacology, drug development. In AVANT, RVC is leading a work package to develop phage and polymer-based approaches for infection control (WP2).
Contact: Dr. Liam Good, Prof. Ludovic Pelligand, Dr. Simona Di Blasio
Affiliation: Department of Pathobiology and Population Sciences / Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences
Website: https://www.rvc.ac.uk
RTDS Association (RTDS)
RTDS Association (RTDS) is a non-profit SME supporting implementation of EU research & innovation projects to optimise use of the results to maximise impact. RTDS provides professional management of dissemination, communication and exploitation (DEC) in a range of areas: food, nutrition and agriculture, forestry and associated processing technologies, manufacturing but also renewable energy, transport and related social sciences. Project management and coordination is offered where required. RTDS draws from extensive experience and expertise in IPR management, business plan development, communication, PR and dissemination activities and training. Not pursuing ownership of research results, RTDS objectively manages all DEC and innovation processes in collaborative projects to develop business models and exploitation plans in the interest of all involved partners. Dissemination and communication planning are then optimised to support the exploitation strategy. In AVANT, RTDS leads a work package on dissemination, dissemination, exploitation and communication (WP8).
Contact: Filoklis Pileidis, Luis Rodrigues. LLM
Affiliation: RTDS Association
Website: http://www.rtds-group.com/
Schothorst Feed Research (SFR)
SFR performs research on behalf of the feed compounding industry and their suppliers, including over 40 SME clients in 22 countries. SFR provides clients with information and knowledge to allow them to produce compound feeds of such quality as is demanded by the buyers of compound feedstuffs and the consumers of animal products. SFR customers produce approximately 10% of the global animal feed. SFR has specialized knowledge in 1) development of modern feed evaluation systems for poultry, ruminants and swine, 2) feedstuff evaluation and 3) determination of the nutrient requirements of the different animal categories. Our activities comply research, nutritional advice and courses & training. From 2006 antibiotics were banned as growth promoter and in 2018 the utilization of zinc oxide has been banned in The Netherlands. For many years SFR is conducting different trials to find alternatives to replace and reduce the antibiotic and zinc oxide use in swine diets.
SFR leads a work package on feeding strategies (WP4) in order to get new insights on what role for example crude protein, fibre or crude fat can play in the diet to improve the health status of pre- and post-weaning piglets and therefore reduce the utilization of antibiotics. SFR will help some of the partners in the AVANT project to test some of their solutions under control and defined situations. Finally, SFR will also play an important role in clinical trials by validating some possible solutions against enteric disorders as well as assisting with the dissemination of the trials to the feeding industry.
Contact: Dr. Francesc Molist, DVM, BBS; Anouschka Middelkoop, MSc.; Xiaonan Guan, MSc., Researcher Swine Nutrition
Affiliation: Schothorst Feed Research B.V. / Swine Nutrition R&D
Website: https://www.schothorst.nl/en/
SEGES Innovation (SEGES)
SEGES Innovation is the Danish Agriculture & Food Council, that represents the farming and food industries of Denmark including companies, trade and farmers’ associations. SEGES bridges the gap between farmers and research and aim to develop products and services in partnership with the users. SEGES ensures that the latest knowledge and technology is deployed by Danish farmers on their farms as rapidly and efficiently as possible. SEGES is responsible for the development and sales of specialized consultancy services, programs and other products targeting farmers and gardeners. Furthermore, SEGES provides services to a series of other customers with relation to the primary agricultural sector, manage a range of development and service tasks for farmer-owned advisory companies, and collaborate with universities, ministries, businesses and non-governmental organisations.
SEGES participates in national and international projects through our extensive trial work and collaborate with Universities, research institutions, public authorities, and private companies worldwide. SEGES – The Danish Pig Research Centre (DPRC), a part of SEGES, is the expert organization for the Danish pig producers. DPRC has around 155 employees of which approximately 100 are involved in R&D activities. They work on applied research in all areas of pig production: genetics, housing, nutrition, environment, health and welfare. DRPC has a lot of experience in running R&D studies in the field in close cooperation with commercial pig farms as well as leading experimental studies in controlled environment. The dedicated DPRC team of technicians has a lot of experience in the data collection phase of field studies. DPRC owns a pig farm for special studies.
Contact: Hanne Maribo. M.Sc. PhD
Affiliation: Landbrug & Fodevarer F.m.b.A. / The Danish Pig Research Centre (SEGES)
Website: https://segesinnovation.dk/
University of Bern (UBERN)
Located in the capital of Switzerland, the University of Bern has close to 20,000 studies and 150 institutes. UBERN is a top-class performer in research areas that are of great social and scientific importance, especially in the following five priority topics: Sustainability, Health and Medicine, Matter and the Universe, Intercultural Knowledge, Politics and Administration.
The KPM Center for Public Management, as a unit of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Law, is committed to interdisciplinary cooperation between the disciplines of law, economics and political science. Core products of the center are basic research in the field of management of public institutions and tasks, the master’s program Public Management & Policy (PMP) as well as the postgraduate programs Executive Master of Public Administration (Executive MPA) and the CAS course “Management and Policy of Public Institutions” (CeMaP). In addition, services are provided to the public sector in the form of analyses, expert opinions and evaluations.
Within the AVANT consortium, the work of UBERN is to examine the economic aspects related to the use of alternatives such as gut microbiome modulators, and the potential impact of their wide application in Europe.
Contact: Dr. Chantal Morel
Affiliation: KPM Center for Public Management
Website: https://www.unibe.ch/index_eng.html
KPM Center: https://www.kpm.unibe.ch/index_eng.html
University of Liverpool (UOL)
University of Liverpool (UOL) is a public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded as a college in 1881, it gained its Royal Charter in 1903 and is now world-class in teaching and learning with; Research-connected curricula, Teaching delivered by leading experts, 22,000+ students on campus, Global exchange opportunities, £800 million investment in our teaching, research and residential estate with over 400+ Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses.
About AVANT and its participation in the project, Dr. Joao Sucena Alfonso stated that: “Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a huge challenge, that needs to be addressed as a joint global effort within the One Health perspective. The use of antimicrobials for the purpose of food production contributes to the AMR problem. Without changing the nature of the current production systems, it is vital we find alternatives to antimicrobial usage (AMU) or strategies to alleviate their use in these contexts. By exploring the use of different interventions and understanding their effectiveness in pig production, AVANT will increase the array of tools in the fight against AMR, potentially offering financially feasible alternatives to antimicrobials that can be adopted by farmers.”
Within the AVANT consortium, the work of UOL will be the assessment of the feasibility of implementing the identified interventions from a financial perspective, as well as understand their cost-effectiveness in reducing AMU in pig production at the European level. Additionally, the level of reduction in AMU as a consequence of the wide adoption of such interventions at the European level by 2030 will also be predicted.
Contact: Dr. Joao Sucena Afonso, Post-Doctoral Researcher
Affiliation: University of Liverpool, Livestock & One Health Department
Website: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk
Livestock & One Health Department: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/veterinary-science/about-us/livestock-and-one-health
Wageningen Research (WUR)
Wageningen Research (WUR) and Wageningen University (WU) together form Wageningen University & Research. Wageningen Research has around 2,500 employees and an annual turnover of around € 300 million. The Ministry of Economic Affairs provides approximately 40% of the research project funding. WR is a contract research organisation with no teaching obligations, although many of its scientists are involved in MSc and PhD supervision. Their staff publishes over 1,000 peer reviewed publications annually. WUR has nine research institutes including Wageningen Livestock Research (WLR) – ‘Partner in Livestock Innovations’. The organisation has many years of experience in collecting and collating knowledge, and developing practical innovative solutions for the pig, dairy and poultry industry. WLR integrates scientific know-how in the areas of livestock systems, nutrition, physiology, genetics, genomics, immunology, welfare and environmental impact of farm animals to produce livestock concepts for the 21th century. The interaction between nutrition, including pre- and probiotics, immunology, physiology, metabolism and performance is studied in many national and international projects and, more recently, omics-tools have been developed to study molecular mechanisms farm animals. The broad spectrum of expertise means that WLR is the knowledge and business partner for a wide range of clients.
Wageningen Research contributes to several work packages: Analysis of blood and tissue samples tools obtained in in vivo studies with pigs performed in the first three work packages, using metabolomics and ELISA tools to assess effects of interventions on immune and health status. Contributions to another work package work package (WP4) foucs performance of research on nutritional interventions in post-weaning piglets aimed to improve (gut) health and gut functionality analysis of blood and tissue samples using metabolomics and transcriptomics tools obtained in studies with sows and pre-weaning piglets to assess effects of nutritional interventions on immune and health status.
Contact: Dr. Alfons Jansman, Soumya Kar
Affiliation: Stichting Wageningen Research, Wageningen Livestock Research
Website: https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Research-Institutes
Former members of the consortium
