Episode 17 DWP- Cutting Edge EHD Vaccines w/ Medgene Labs

Ashley received her Bachelor’s Degree in Animal Science and Master’s Degree in Veterinary Microbiology from South Dakota State University. She has worked at Medgene since its founding over 13 years ago. This has allowed her to be involved in almost all aspects of vaccine research, development and manufacturing. Advancing from a research assistant to Senior Scientist and ISPrime Director, she now bridges the gap between external sales and internal vaccine manufacturing, along with being technical services for Medgene's small ruminant division. Utilizing her nearly 10 years of customer facing experience in the cervid industry, she also manages Medgene's Customer Service Team that continuously receives high esteem from customers. 

https://medgenelabs.com/deer 

This podcast is built around real-world experience, collaboration with producers and veterinarians, and nearly three decades of hands-on work across North America. The goal is simple: provide practical insight that helps producers make better decisions for herd health, genetics, and long-term success. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Deer Wizard Podcast, conversation shaping the deer industry. I'm your host, Josh Newton, the Deer Wizard. Through interviews, advocacy, and industry news, we deliver field-proven insights to help producers build better herbs. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Deer Wizard Podcast. I'm excited to have a guest on today that we've spoken with in the past. Many of you know her. She specializes in EHD vaccines. I'm talking about Ashley Peterson, the ISO Prime Director at MedGene Labs in Brookings, South Dakota. We have an extensive conversation with Ashley about uh how their technology came to be, what sets it apart from other platforms, and just a really good um educational discussion about EHD. This is uh part of our education platform that we're providing relating to epizoatic hemorrhagic disease. We do get into a bit of uh blue tongue, and it's a really interesting conversation. Again, I am not an expert on uh EHD and blue tongue, so when we have these conversations, I'm trying to pry and tease out uh some of that info, and hopefully, if you're watching or listening, that you can benefit from that as well. So Ashley has a wealth of knowledge in the EHD and Blue Tongue space, in immunology and uh vaccines, and and you'll see um, you know, you we we saw uh Dr. Wisely here uh last week on the show. We're gonna be getting regular updates from Ashley as well. And so we're gonna start building out a channel list on the Deer Wizard Podcast for uh separate topics relating to animal health, one of those being EHD, obviously chronic waste and disease, and lots of other fun stuff in the future. So I really hope you enjoy this conversation, and I want to welcome Ashley Peterson to the show. Ashley, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Hey, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I'm doing well. I appreciate you coming on today. Um I was chatting with uh Dr. Samantha Wisely from uh the University of Florida at the Cherry Lab recently. Uh we had her on the pod, had a great interview, and uh I want to cover some of the other side of the research that she does um that has an impact on the deer industry. Before we get into that, can you just introduce the audience uh to yourself, give a little background, and we'll kind of go from there?

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yeah, um, I am Ashley Peterson. I am the IS Prime director at MedGene Labs. I have been with the company since 2012, 2014. Um part-time 2012, full-time 2014. Um, so the company basically started with technology founded by Dr. Alan Young, a professor from South Dakota State University. And he was working on an assay to try to detect scrapie, a prion disease in sheep, um, using a bench assay versus um brain samples. Um and so when I was getting my bachelor's degree in animal science, I was working at his lab at South Dakota State University. So that's how I got connected to Alan. And then I ended up getting a master's degree while working part-time at MedGeen, working on that assay for the scrape B detection. And then uh went full-time for MedGene after I got my master's in veterinary microbiology. Um so been doing science-related things with prion diseases for um the beginning of my career, I guess, and then to support MedGene with grants. Um, we were working with Kansas State on a vaccine project with Riff Valley Fever. Um, that vaccine did really well. Uh, Riff Valley Fever is a foreign animal disease, and so spinning off from that um and the pre-on side of things, Alan knew Sean Schaefer, the executive director of Nadifa. And Sean told Alan about EHD. Um, EHD is an orbivirus. Um, the targets for vaccine development are well known. So Alan was like, hey, we could use that as a vaccine model since Rift Valley is a foreign animal disease and we can only do so much for that sort of research. So to continue our vaccine side of med gene, we started working on EHD. Um, and that's where our EHD kind of launched, and that was in 2014. So we've been doing stuff ever since on that.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Um that's how that's how we started. That's it's it's so interesting to see like the backgrounds of how things come to be, right? It's kind of you know, you get a little bit of right place, right time, and and also those, you know, personal and professional relationships that you've made, you know, across your career. And like, so just you know, like Alan and Sean knowing each other. Um, you know, uh EHD wasn't even on Alan's radar, right? And so it just wasn't it wasn't his area, but like and neither were vaccines, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Is it neither were vaccines, but yeah, that's wild. We found um so baccavirus expression system is what MedGene uses now, and that works really well. And once we got on the vaccine side of things and realized, you know, we could really make them work well, and Alan started to get a vision of how we could do vaccines differently, um, especially when there was the outbreak of PDB in 2014, and he saw that there was a gap in how the USDA license licenses vaccines, and it takes a long time to get veterinary biologics from concept to market. 10 years typically, uh long time. So tons of pigs were dying. You could technically use a backlirus expression system platform to get vaccine made in a very short amount of time, but the USDA had no way for a company to get that to market fast. So we actually helped the USDA write new regulations for prescription platform vaccines. Um, and Medine was um one of the first to have a prescription platform license. So from Rift Valley Fever vaccine to EHD vaccine, we completely went total vaccines, and now we're swine, cattle, turkeys, um doing some fish studies. I mean, we're into kind of everything now.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

And you failed to mention rabbits.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Oh, yes, yeah, rabbits, Josh. Well, I just yes, rabbit vaccines too. Yeah. I mean, we're saving uh we're gonna have a paper come out about the pygmy pygmy rabbits in Washington. Um they have used the RHDV2 vaccine in those wild populations and they're now thriving. So um, yeah, our RHDV2 vaccine for rabbits is keeping those bunnies alive, so that's good too. Uh, and we were actually sought out by the USCA to make that vaccine versus us even knowing that we should go after something like that. But um, RHDV2 was a virus that kind of came out of nowhere in the uh rabbit population. Um, it was overseas and then got to the US, and the only vaccines that were available were in Europe, and so the USDA was allowing importation if there was an outbreak. So it was reactive versus preventative medicine, and they did not like having to do that. Also, those vaccines, you had to use liver from infected rabbits to make the vaccine. Um, again, our backlavirus expression system does not use live animals. No animal products are in our vaccine. So they loved our technology, asked us if we could do that. The target for RHCV2 is well known. So we got it into our backlavirus expression system, got a vaccine put together, did the trials, works amazingly well, very effective, and now we're hopefully full license anytime now.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

So that's exciting. Uh and just just for the the folks listening, why I brought up rabbits, is that uh I live in a small bubble in the in the deer world. Like deer is pretty much all I know. And um I had uh seen Ashley at a trade show that I was attending, and they had a rabbit, uh, a big rabbit. I don't know what kind of rabbits are those. What are they called?

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Uh I think that was a Himalayan.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Himalayan. This thing's huge, right? It's like 20 pounds. And he's like hanging out, and I'm like, why is there a rabbit in your booth? And she told me an interesting fact that I'll never forget, and it's that uh dogs are the number one companion animal, cats are the number two companion animal, and rabbits are the number three companion animal with like six million rabbits as pets in the United States. And so if you know anything about uh being a dog or cat owner or a companion animal owner, um the folks that have animals um as part of their lives are willing to spend any amount of money to keep them uh happy, safe, and healthy. And so I just never thought of a viable business model relating to you know a vaccine for rabbits. Like I just didn't know that was a thing, and of course, that's my uh short-sighted, naive look at the the world, but like obviously it makes sense, and so you know, Ashley, Ashley told me that that's why I joke about rabbits. So anyway, um Josh has never forgotten it. No, I and I I I won't just because like I I just it it never like it never crossed my mind that like that was a thing, and it's actually a huge thing, like a massive thing, and um, you know, like the bunnies all over the world rejoice. Uh and if you're a bunny owner, I'm sorry. So anyway, it's super cool on the uh the technology. So like let's talk about like the the thing that at least what I what I think I'm hearing, the thing that makes MedGeen unique as a as a lab.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Yeah, so as a vaccine manufacturer, we obviously operate a lot different than other manufacturing companies. Um our goal is to stay very connected to our customers because our platform is meant to stay up to date with the current strains that are circulating, um, especially on the swine side, like what is currently at the barn, because different strains of rotavirus will come in and they are different, and vaccines don't always cross-protect that well. So we have to know what is circulating, get those vaccines updated and back to those barns for proper protection. So um, I'm not supposed to use that word, but anyways, um, so we have a system which is IS Prime. Um, as I mentioned, I'm the IS Prime director. So what that means is from the herd to the end goal of um having a successful vaccine, we monitor that whole process. So we get samples from a herd to identify what pathogens are affecting that herd. So we'd have to do diagnostics at a diagnostic lab. We get a PCR positive for whatever pathogen is affecting them. And then from that PCR positive result, we do sequencing. Um, so we're also different where we don't have to have an actual virus or bacteria. We just need a sequence to a specific part of that virus or bacteria. From that, we compare that specific part of a virus. So for EHD, it would be either the VP2 or VP5 protein on the virus, and we compare those proteins to what's in our vaccine to make sure that our vaccine still has the appropriate what's called epitopes. Um, so proteins are not linear structures, they're basically big balls, big globs of molecule, like a molecule. Um, and so the outside of that protein is what is available for antibody antigen interaction. So the antibody will bind to specific sites, those are called epitopes. So our technology allows us to look at those specific epitopes instead of the entire sequence. Um that's what we're looking at when we get the VP2 or VP5 sequence, are those epitopes to make sure those epitopes are still the same between the sequence in the field and what's in our vaccine. And as long as those are matching, then our vaccine is still up to date and good to use in the field. If we have some missing epitopes, then that's when we need to either put new what we call constructs. So that would be the other um, so like new VP2 or VP5 in the vaccine to cover those uh missing epitopes that the current constructs don't cover. Um that is not common on the EHD side, unless we're talking about EHDB2 versus EHDB6. So on the EHD side, there's three main serotypes that circulate in the US: EHDB1, 2, and 6. Um, currently our vaccine covers EHDB2 and EHDB6. So if we would look at the sequences of the two proteins from EHDB2, so VP2 and VP5 from EHDB2, those look different than VP2 and VP5. Sorry, VP2 and VP5 from EHDB1. So that's why we have to have those specific proteins from the different serotypes. And then it also allows us if a new strain comes in, we can identify that and get vaccine um made and put in to get out to the field.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

All right.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

When the USDA allows for that.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Sure. Sure. USDA is the gate holder. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Let's USDA Center for Veterinary Biologics. Um that's who regulates us. So they're a division of the USDA.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Let's um let's rewind to the 2014 time frame. And let's let's start from the beginning of the kind of the development process. We I heard some bits and pieces of it, but specifically on the EHD side as it relates to to your work today. As far as well, so like 2014 was like when you kind of really started working on the EHD side of things. Um so like w what was what were the the first things that you had to do? You know, you mentioned doing diagnostics and then the lab work like what does that look like for EHD specifically?

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Yeah, okay. So back in 2014, when Sean kind of let Alan know, hey, EHD is a real problem in the deer industry, and we don't have a really good tool for vaccines at least to combat this. Alan started to research it. He's like, okay, there's good information, good tools for vaccine targets. So first we went just after EHDV2. It's the most prevalent strain, causes the most problems. Um, for vaccine development, it's easiest to start with just a single target and make sure that that monovalent vaccine works well before you start building on top of that. So our initial research started with EHDB2. Um, we started in sheep because we're in South Dakota. Uh, sheep are around, easy to work with. Uh, they're a good ruminant species, uh, deer are ruminants. So that work started with ensuring VP2 and VP5 were the right proteins to target, which we confirmed. And then we had to obviously understand how much of those proteins we need in the vaccine. Um, there's different adjuvants. So an adjuvant is a component that you put into a vaccine that helps make the immune system recognize that they need to respond to something. If you just inject a protein into an animal, that doesn't really do anything. So for protein or subunit vaccines, you need an adjuvant to get a response. So we had to test different adjuvants to determine which of those worked best for EHD specifically and a ruminant species. And then from there, we just kept building on top of that. Um, I believe it was in 2016, 2017 when we were able to do our first study in whitetails at a farm here in South Dakota. And that also just confirmed that what we saw in sheep also translated to having an immune response in whitetails, because sometimes different species don't show you the same thing, but we did confirm that whitetails responded the same as what we were seeing with the sheep, and so from there in we just kept building data basically, um, giving reports to the USDA Center for Veterinary Biologics, and really just educating the deer industry that, hey, I think we have a good tool for you guys, and we're working on this. Um, we would go to the different conferences, present our research, and there was a lot of interest. People wanted to get their hands on the vaccine, and so working with um the USDA and with support from the industry, the USDA in 2019 allowed us to provide the vaccine under an experimental label to owners that wanted to have the vaccine. So that was in 2019. Um in 2020, we updated the vaccine to include EHDB six. So in the background, we were also working on um different combinations of EHDV1, two, and six. Sometimes if you combine different um serotypes into one vaccine, you can get reduced performance. So we were testing that in one of our trials, we did see reduced performance of EHDV2 when we included EHDV1. And that is why we just released EHDV2 and EHDV6 in 2020. Um there are probably ways. Now we could tweak the different levels of protein. We also have a different adjuvant where you there's two components. So we could put um you know the proteins for EHDV1 in a different component because we think it's probably protein interaction that was happening that allowed for that immune response to be um reduced for EHDV2. So we would be prepared to add EHDV1 to the vaccine at this point, especially as we see EHDV1 sometimes be more prevalent. Again, that's a more cyclical serotype. Um it's really not seen as common as two or six on a yearly basis. But uh the USDA has not allowed us to change our two and six vaccine. So until we get to the next licensing step, we're we're at two and six until then.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

And those like those are just they're just like way more common than one.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Just generally speaking. Not to say that you can't find one, you certainly can exactly.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Yeah. EHDV2 is definitely the most prominent every single year from data from Cherry. So you said you talked to Dr. Samantha Wisely. Um, she's the director of Cherry, I think is her title.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Um, they have some nice research showing, at least for Florida, that EHDV1 is seen about every three years. And even on those years, it's still the least prevalent of the three.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah, it's it's interesting. So she had mentioned uh 2012 as kind of this like um big date, right? And and it was where they saw uh I think she said like 32 estimated 32 million dollars worth of damages um from deer farmers as far as loss went in in that year. And like I I asked her about it, and I'm pretty sure um it was Hurricane Lee, there at least that sticks in my brain, and that pushed up through Florida, and like we got I think we got like 15 or 18 inches of rain in like a 24 to 36 hour period at my place, and like it was washing out towns shortly thereafter. We had EHD outbreaks in Pennsylvania, and while it's limited, we still had them, and it's not like a regular thing that people were noticing. So I just thought that was interesting because like that's really about the same time that the conversation popped up with with Sean and Alan, right? Um relatively speaking, and then like we have this. So I I guess tying into the to the cherry lab, you know, they're doing obviously independent work, but it's all in the same field. What do you like like can you use some of their data and and can that point you into certain directions around your development with what they're seeing? Um, how does that how does that interaction work?

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Yeah, so I think it was also 2019, um, the same year that we started providing the vaccine directly to the field. Cherry reached out. Um I had met Dr. Samantha Wisely at Nadifa, I think it was 2019. Um, because then it was I think it was mid-year 2019 when we were able to start providing vaccine. Um, it was like right in the nick of time being able to vaccinate. Um and they decided to purchase some of our vaccine and provide it to some of the Florida deer farms. And they helped those deer farmers vaccinate and they collected samples and um had serum neutralization assays performed to identify if the vaccine was actually inducing a neutralizing antibody response. Um, so what that means is you're detecting actual neutralizing antibodies. So that those antibodies would, if a virus comes in, actually attach and neutralize it. Um, there are other types of antibodies that don't do that exact same thing. Um so neutralizing antibodies are very important and a good sign that the vaccine is um, sorry, I have to be careful with my words so I don't try to make a claim that we don't have um that a vaccine is very successful. Um so they were able to confirm that our vaccine does in fact uh produce neutralizing antibodies against at the time it was EHDB2, and then they also monitored those deer and did necropsies on any of them that died throughout the season and then determined what they died from. So, did they die from EHDB2? Were those vaccinated? And so from that study in 2019, they showed that um the men gene vaccinated deer, there were zero that died um from EHDB2, and the deer that were not vaccinated that they had in the study, I believe I can't remember exactly how many died, but they showed that there was a difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated, where they support the Medine vaccine versus other vaccines that they had done the exact same type of studies and did not see neutralizing antibodies and did not have any difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Yeah, that's that's awesome. Uh she she was just laying uh info after info and tell me about you know like the how 59 different species of midges they've identified here in North America and the 150 worldwide, and you know, there's so much to there's so much to we'll call it EHD management that kind of goes into things, right? And you know, it's not to I think there's a misconception about just vaccines generally that like they provide you know pure immunity or whatever you want to call it, and like it's just not the case. And and um, you know, I think I think it's kind of testament to what Medgin does, where you're continually, you know, doing diagnostics and sequencing, looking at these protein levels and you know making adjustments uh in real time with these batches so you can provide um the best product to folks, um, you know, kind of on a yearly basis as we continue to flow through the the EHD time frame. Um can you talk a little bit about maybe what you're seeing? Because like you you probably have um the largest the largest eyes on where EHD is in the country and how it's moving around. What's that been looking like over the past, let's just say, five years?

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Yeah, so definitely um EHD is moving north. Um, every year it seems to go further north, stay there longer, come earlier. Um unfortunately has to do with the warming patterns in the south. EHD can be found year-round. Um, so over the years, we have been able to develop a better vaccine schedule as we learn through use of the vaccine in the field that southern states it does work better if they're vaccinating and boostering every six months because outbreaks can happen right now. A couple years ago, we had a Texas farm that had an outbreak in April, uh, like a massive outbreak. And like they saw every strain of EHD and some blue tongue strains in April.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Um, so it can be really bad. Um, but the north for the most part does just stay on that you know, August to November peak, but sometimes it starts in June or July when it used to, you know, just start in August. So it's getting, I mean, worse every year. And I feel like every year you're like, gosh, it was a bad EHD year, and you just keep saying that every year. Yeah. Um, unfortunately. So, and at Nadifa, um, the ARS group out of the USDA was there talking about their midge uh research, and that was super interesting, and their models show just like infinite numbers of midges when they try to like calculate um like population models, like it gives them an infinite symbol. Um, that's not good. No, so I mean it's just the worst virus in the vector that transmits it is everywhere and at huge populations. So, yeah, just trying to use a vaccine to combat it is not gonna do it. It's not a magic bullet. Um, just using fogging to combat it is not gonna do it because there's an infinite amount of midges and you're not gonna be able to kill them all.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yeah. Um so I guess from uh a practical sense, I would think that um you're starting to see adjustments in how you're recommending the use geographically to people. Um you mentioned like an outbreak in April in in Texas, right? And so like there has to be some adjustments in the application of the vaccine to to give these animals the the kind of best shot that must change um maybe timing of when it's applied or administered, um you know, north to south and stuff like that. So is it it's it's obviously a veterinarian producer driven program, but you know, you're trying to interact with these these herd veterinarians and make the best recommendations based off of the the data you're seeing and and the known science that you have. Is that is that kind of accurate? How does that how does that work?

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Yeah, so that goes back to my comment of for southern states, we highly recommend the every six-month booster. We know the antibodies that our vaccine induces last about six months. Um, so vaccinating every six months in the south will maintain antibodies year-round. So for northern states, um, making sure you vaccinate within a time frame where those antibodies will be around through November is what your goal should be. Um, I know there's people that have to vaccinate bucks in like February. You're not gonna have those antibody titers through November. So you're gonna have to figure out a way to booster those bucks again to get those antibody titers out past November. Um so everyone finds a way to make it work. Um, I know it can be tricky, but I I promise you there's people that figure it out. Um there's a farm in South Dakota that had started our vaccine. Um, I think it was about 2018 when there was a large outbreak in South Dakota, bad enough where game and fish had to buy back deer tags because the wild population like got wiped out so bad that there wasn't enough for like hunters to go hunt.

unknown 34:42

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Um, so a lot of South Dakota farmers started to use our vaccine uh then. Well, once it was available. But um so they started using our vaccine. They couldn't make it feasible to vaccinate fawns. Um, so we do know that our vaccine, when admin administered to pregnant does, those does will pass on antibodies through colostrum to those fawns. Um, but the maternal antibodies are gone by four months of age. So then those fawns are naive unless they're vaccinated. So that farm um didn't vaccinate fawns, and they would still lose fawns to EHD. So after a few years of that, and their adults, their fully vaccinated adults would be fine. Um so they finally found a way to get their fawns vaccinated and they're good.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

So through experience of using the vaccine, I think people start to see that it works. And I I understand um from the personal side of you know, you own these deer and you've heard horror stories from other people of other products that were used or other stories. Um and so you don't trust the product until you use it, right? So I totally understand that. Um, but we have good data, we have people that have used it for years and stand behind it. So um I know a lot of people are happy to discuss the use of it and how it's worked for them. And again, it's it's not a hundred percent protective, it can't stand on its own. Um, I wish it was the saving grace for all of you, but it's it's just not.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Yeah, it's so it's so interesting. You know, you think about um you think about the challenges where I'll call it management, right? We're handling physical handling of these animals to get this in this case, this particular shot, into them, and it's really hard to coincide with the life cycle of the deer, right? And so that's the challenge, right? But like like you mentioned, it can be done, and there's there's always trade-offs with with management. So, you know, you're up you're applying at a a vaccine at an inopportune time of year for a particular growth cycle, whether that be let's just say a a young fawn prior to weaning, or a buck that has antlers that could be susceptible to damage, or you can come up with you know does that are pregnant, etc. But we have pretty well established data that most likely if EHD hits you, the costs of whatever downside that happened during that particular management protocol are outweighed by live animals, right? And so um it it's uh it's important to uh, like you said, find a way. Um because it it is devastating. Um, Dr. Wisley called it um uh kind of tug-in-cheek, you know, the Ebola of deer. And it's just because you know, these animals literally just like hemorrhage out from the inside in a very short period of time, like rapid onset disease. And there's really not uh viable treatment protocols, like there's you know, folks have come up with uh farmers are the most uh intuitive and ingenious people at coming up with ways to save animals, right? Like that's that's a fact. I've seen some just uh crazy stuff, and like these animals live and they prosper, but uh at the same time there's not like some like hey, if you do this, like they live. The virus is just nasty. So, you know, having a having a product like like MedGean's um EHD vaccine is is really cool. Um before we wrap up, I just want to touch on Blue Tongue a little bit because um it always it kind of takes a backseat to to you know the EHD virus, and um it's confused a lot with EHD. And um, I I want to explore that just briefly, maybe setting the stage for a a future conversation. Can you can you touch on uh blue tongue?

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah, so blue tongue is also an orbivirus, so EHD orbivirus, blue tongue, orbivirus, they're cousin viruses and both hemorrhagic diseases, so they cause the same clinical signs. So without diagnostic testing, they can be confused. Um, if you lose a deer, you may think EHD, it could be blue tongue, and vice versa. Um, so diagnostics are very important because we know our vaccine does not cross-protect a blue tongue. We are working on trying to get blue tongue vaccine more widely available. Unfortunately, there are a ton of blue tongue serotypes that are in the US, and trying to get all of that into one vaccine is not feasible. There's only so much space, and when you have to put so much of those proteins into a vaccine, you can only put so much, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

So we're working on that. Um again, we we have a licensing pathway that we're we're going to eventually have a prescription platform for whitetailed deer, which will allow us to provide more vaccines for whitetails besides just the EHDV2 and six. Um, and then it we could do an EHDV126 and some blue tongue strains in there. So we can have different combinations, come up with some different stuff, but that's that's on the licensing pathway that we're we're on in hopefully in the next two years that will be completed.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Um, but yeah, very hard to distinguish those two unless you have a diagnostic test confirming is it blue tongue, is it EHD? And then you have the cases where you might get a negative for either, and and then what? Because it looks like a hemorrhagic disease. There's more Orby viruses out there. Um there was a Minnesota farm that tested positive for um a different orby virus, a really rare one, um last fall. Um so that's without uh sequencing, they would not have known because it was negative for EHD, it was negative for blue tongue, but it was clearly a hemorrhagic disease that killed this deer. So thankfully the lab um went further and did the sequencing and was able to detect this other orbivirus. So again, with with Medine's technology, we could start to explore those extra more rare orbiviruses. Um, cherry has found a ton of uh unique orbiviruses to Florida. Um so yeah, there's a lot out there without diagnostic testing, just assuming it's EHD is not the thing to do along MedGen's unique technology. We also someday could look at actually targeting the midge in the vaccine. Um, MedGene has vaccines against ticks and hornflies. Um, we're coming out with a Tyleria vaccine. So we have the technology to target um actual vectors. So that is something in the future that we hope to be able to do. So we might eventually have a EHD midge, anti midge vaccine someday.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

I love it. That's my goal.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

That's my goal.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

No, that's it's it's super cool. Um, I'm gonna make sure that your uh information uh along with MedGenes is is linked up in the show notes. You know, if anybody uh has questions about, you know, EHD uh And or blue tongue, the vaccine, et cetera, they can get a hold of Ashley. She's she's happy to work with you on that and make sure that uh she can provide the best insights so you and your herd veterinarian can make the best decision for your farm. Ashley, thank you so much for uh coming on the show today and and sharing your your wealth of knowledge with us on on this particular topic.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

Yeah, thanks, Josh, for having me.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Absolutely. And with that, stay tuned for another episode of the Deer Wizard Podcast.