Bernard Michael Bindon - reproductive physiologist, animal scientist, research leader

This paper is a foreword to a series of papers commissioned on 'the impact of science on the beef industry', where the Beef CRC-related collaborative scientific work of Professor Bernard Michael Bindon will be reviewed. These papers will be presented in March 2006, as part of a 'festschrift' to recognise his wider contributions to the Australian livestock industries for over 40 years. Bindon's career involved basic and applied research in many areas of reproductive physiology, genetics, immunology, nutrition, meat science and more recently genomics, in both sheep and cattle. Together with his collaborators, he made large contributions to animal science by improving the knowledge of mechanisms regulating reproductive functions and in elucidating the physiology and genetics of high fecundity livestock. His collaborative studies with many colleagues of the reproductive biology and genetics of the Booroola Merino were amongst the most extensive ever conducted on domestic livestock. He was instrumental in the development of immunological techniques to control ovulation rate and in examining the application of these and other techniques to increase beef cattle reproductive output. This paper tracks his investigations and achievements both within Australia and internationally. In the later stages of his career he was the major influence in attracting a large investment in Cooperative Research Centres for the Australian cattle industry, in which he directed a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate, develop and disseminate science and technology to improve commercial cattle productivity.

Detection of dengue viral RNA in Aedes aegypti (Diptera : Culicidae) exposed to sticky lures using reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction

Active surveillance for dengue (DEN) virus infected mosquitoes can be an effective way to predict the risk of dengue infection in a given area. However, doing so may pose logistical problems if mosquitoes must be kept alive or frozen fresh to detect DEN virus. In an attempt to simplify mosquito processing, we evaluated the usefulness of a sticky lure and a seminested reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assay (RT-PCR) for detecting DEN virus RNA under laboratory conditions using experimentally infected Aedes aegypti (L.) mosquitoes. In the first experiment, 40 male mosquitoes were inoculated with 0.13 mul of a 10(4) pfu/ml DEN-2 stock solution. After a 7-d incubation period, the mosquitoes were applied to the sticky lure and kept at room temperatures of 23-30 degreesC. Following 7,10,14, and 28 d application, 10 mosquitoes each were removed from the lure pooled and assayed for virus. DEN virus nucleic acid was clearly detectable in all pools up to 28 d after death. A second study evaluated sensitivity and specificity using one, two, and five DEN-infected mosquitoes removed after 7, 10, 14, 21 and 30 d application and tested by RT-PCR. All four DEN serotypes were individually inoculated in mosquitoes and evaluated using the same procedures as experiment 1. The four serotypes were detectable in as few as one mosquito 30 d after application to the lure with no evidence of cross-reactivity. The combination of sticky lures and RT-PCR show promise for mosquito and dengue virus surveillance and warrant further evaluation.