[Biotechnology and animal health].

The development of the first vaccines for use in animals, by Louis Pasteur at the end of the 19th Century, was an initial step in applying biotechnology to animal health. However, it is only much more recently that decisive progress has been made in finding applications for biotechnology, in both detecting and preventing infectious and parasitic diseases. This progress has shown the way to developing a range of procedures, the application of which will benefit the health of domestic and wild animals, enhance the well-being of companion animals, develop the performance of sporting animals and improve the productivity of farm animals, while also serving to protect human health. Such progress results from the increasingly rapid application of knowledge gained in the material and life sciences, all of which contribute to the multidisciplinary nature of biotechnology. Similarly, reagents and diagnostic techniques have been made more specific, sensitive, reproducible, rapid and robust by updating them through recent discoveries in immunology, biochemistry and molecular biology (monoclonal antibodies, nucleic probes, deoxyribonucleic acid amplification and many more). The development of new vaccines which combine efficacy, duration of protection, innocuity, stability, multivalence and ease of use (subunit vaccines, recombinant vaccines, synthetic vaccines and anti-idiotype vaccines) has resulted from recent progress in immunology, immunochemistry, molecular biology and biochemistry. Finally, the availability of new anti-infective, anti-parasitic agents and immunomodulatory therapeutic agents (capable of stimulating the specific and non-specific defence mechanisms of the body) demonstrates that biotechnology is continuing to find new applications in the field of animal health. New diagnostic techniques, vaccines and therapeutic substances are the most immediate applications of knowledge which may, in the future, extend to the development of transgenic animals of revised genetic potential, which will be more resistant to diseases and more productive. The ultimate aim of biotechnology applied to animal health and animal production is to protect human health, preserve the environment and ensure the health and well-being of animals.