New facility 'puts Roslin Institute at forefront of world-class research'

THE opening yesterday of the new £60 million Roslin Institute building on the Bush Estate south of Edinburgh - which will accommodate 500 of the top animal research scientists - puts Scotland not just in the world-class category in this field, but makes it a world leader.

That assessment of the importance of the facility in world research terms was given by the director of the Institute, Professor David Hume.

He said,that the new facility would bring together under one roof people with differing skills helping to solve animal health and welfare issues that affect livestock and small animals all around the world.

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Among the projects currently under research is one that aims to produce cattle with a resistance to tuberculosis.

Currently, this disease costs the UK taxpayer and the farmer millions of pounds annually in compensation for cattle that have contracted the disease and which then have to be taken out of production and destroyed.

The institute is also working on producing poultry with immunity to avian flu. Although this has not been of major economic consequence in the UK, it is one of the big problems in Asia where poultry are one of the main providers of food.

In an era where greenhouse gas emissions and food security are of major importance, Hume said that geneticists were investigating how food conversion efficiencies could be improved

Apart from projects such as those looking at the genetics of animals, Hume said scientists were involved in a large number of areas aimed at improving animal welfare.

While the institute has been reckoned to contribute 25 million to the local economy, when the wider picture of the institute's work was analysed, he said the spin-out benefits were put at 40m annually including 1,200 jobs.

"We are a major economic driver in the area. We are working with 70 national and international companies and we have research links right across the world," he claimed

The new building project was jointly funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, University of Edinburgh and the Scottish Agricultural College.

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