Bulletin

Issue: September/October 2007

News

Move over Seb, here comes the chromatograph

Studying worm odours in sheep poo wins recognition for ‘Fresh Science’

La Trobe University Doctoral student in agriculture, Jacqueline Burgess, has identified odour molecules associated with the small brown stomach worm in sheep – a discovery that advances the prospect of combating serious production losses in Australia’s livestock industry from parasitic worms.

Her work recently won her a place as one of 16 young Australian scientists promoted under the banner of Fresh Science – a national science awareness program linked to Science Week.

Ms Burgess has taken her diagnostic research one step closer to developing an automatic sniffing device to identify dangerous parasitic infections in sheep
– such as small brown stomach worms, barbers’ pole worm or the black scour worm – from the odour of sheep faeces.

The project was encouraged by the success of ‘Seb’, a German shepherd sniffer dog trained at La Trobe to detect parasite-infected sheep faeces. Seb’s prowess was reported widely in Australian and international media last year.

Ms Burgess is now researching new systems for detecting whether the odour of sheep faeces changes when an animal’s digestive system is infected by parasites. Under the supervision of agriculturalist Dr Mark Sandeman and chemist, Dr John Traeger, she is developing new techniques for faster diagnoses – by asking ‘what compounds might Seb the sniffer dog have been smelling?’ and ‘can we design a device to do what Seb does?’

Her project seeks to replace Seb with a gas chromatograph coupled to a mass spectrometer, to identify specific molecules associated with the odour of parasite-infected faeces.

From this, researchers plan to design an electronic ‘nose’ – ultimately leading to refined biosensor technology that allows automatic checking of sheep.

These detectors may one day be integrated with automatic weighing and monitoring systems, with the electronic tag numbers of infected animals automatically transmitted to a farmer’s computer.

‘This,’ says Ms Burgess, ‘would greatly cut the labour associated with maintaining a healthy flock. There’s potential for great savings for the Australian livestock industry which suffers serious financial burden and animal deaths from intestinal parasites.’

While any automated system may still be a long way off, the researchers are confident they will have a prototype electronic ‘poo-sniffing’ device within five years.

The research is being undertaken with the financial aid of the Australian Sheep Industry CRC.