CSIRO Livestock Industries' researcher, Dr Muren Herrid.

CSIRO Livestock Industries

Providing research solutions to enable Australia's livestock and allied industries to be globally competitive.

• 21 January 2010 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Our goals
• Our mission
• Strategic locations
• World class research capability
• Our current research

CSIRO Livestock Industries provides research solutions to enable Australia's livestock and allied industries to be globally competitive.

Our goals 

CSIRO Livestock Industries animal bioscience and technology is aimed at: 

• developing, adapting and integrating knowledge and technology for farm and business systems
• improving the management of risks posed by animal disease both to trade and production
• increasing the value of livestock by improving the inherent capacity of animals to deliver current and new products
• developing approaches to increase the beneficial environmental impacts of livestock production and anticipate and address community concerns about livestock and livestock products.

Our mission

Support Australia's meat, dairy and aquaculture industries, and increasingly enterprises within the broader economy, to be stronger global competitors in the 21st Century by:

• improving productivity and product quality
• enhancing welfare, health and safety of livestock products and production systems
• providing practical solutions to reduce the environmental impact of livestock industries
• ensuring Australia's biosecurity status to protect market access and increasingly, human health
• assisting adoption of innovations and creating wealth for Australia by generating business opportunities in the broader bioeconomy

  We provide research and development support for Australia’s meat, dairy and aquaculture industries to be stronger global competitors in the 21st Century.
• improving human health with new products and therapeutics
• partnering with other organisations, nationally and internationally to deliver wider benefits
• transferring knowledge through publication, partnership, and information exchange.

Strategic locations

CSIRO Livestock Industries is strategically located over five main sites with a number of associated research/field stations:

• FD McMaster Laboratories, Armidale, New South Wales 
• Centre for Environment & Life Sciences, Floreat, Western Australia
• Australian Animal Health Laboratory, Geelong, Victoria
• Belmont Research Station, Rockhampton, Queensland
• Australian Tropical Sciences and Innovation Precinct, Townsville, Queensland
• Queensland Bioscience Precinct, St Lucia, Queensland.

CSIRO Livestock Industries provides research capability to four National Research Flagships:

• Food Futures
• Sustainable Agriculture
• Future Manufacturing
• Preventative Health.

CSIRO Livestock Industries is helping to build CSIRO's Transformational Capability Platforms in:

• Transformational Biology
• Advanced Materials
• Computational and Simulation Sciences
• Sensors and Sensor Network Technologies

World class research capability

CSIRO Livestock Industries' world class research capabilities include:

• Diagnostic sciences:
  • perform quality-assured diagnostic testing in an advanced biosecurity environment
  • provide advice to government agencies on disease control
  • transfer diagnostic capability as appropriate.
    
• Pathogen identification and characterisation:
  • identify and characterise new and emerging human and livestock pathogens and their vector relationships
  • develop novel platforms and methodologies to establish rapid pathogen profiling and tracking.
    
• Modulation of host response; through the study of host-pathogen interactions, we seek to understand effective defence mechanisms and develop prophylactic measures including genetic resistance, vaccines and novel therapeutics.
  
  
• Animal biology and development; working at the cell, tissue and whole-animal level, we develop science for modulation of the animal through advanced reproduction, transgenesis and other novel technologies.
  
  
• Microbial biology and metagenomics; apply metagenomics to understand the structure and function of microbial communities and their interactions with their surroundings, in order to positively impact agriculture, health and the environment.
  
  
• Animal genomics and genetic analysis:
  • from a foundation of genomic information, analyse genetic variation in natural populations to provide advanced tools for animal selection
  • apply advanced computational tools to the understanding of cellular, tissues and whole-animal biology.
    
• Bioindustry product development; we apply basic biological sciences, with an emphasis on genomics and protein biochemistry to the development of novel products for the food, animal health and human pharmaceutical industries.
  
  
• Livestock environmental systems; we examine the interaction between livestock, plants and the environment on a farm or landscape scale to minimise environmental impacts, increase the efficiency of production and promote animal welfare.

Our current research

Our current research is focused in three key areas:

• Transforming the Animal and its Products; we aim to develop improved, higher-value animal-based products, through applications of genomics, advanced reproduction, and related areas of transformational biology.

• Transforming Animal Biosecurity; we apply cutting-edge technologies to reduce the risk of the emergence or invasion of microbial pathogens and to mitigate the impact of diseases through limitation of spread and modification of the host response.

• Diagnosis, Surveillance and Response; we apply high-tech systems within microbiologically secure containment facilities to deliver CSIRO’s national service responsibilities in diagnostic, surveillance and response to emergency animal and zoonotic diseases.

Read about Professor Alan Bell: Chief, CSIRO Livestock Industries.