Protecting Pollinating Honeybees from Deadly Diseases.

UGA and Dalan Animal Health develop the world’s first honeybee vaccine.

University of Georgia professor of small animal medicine and surgery Dr. Jo Mayer pioneered one of the most robust honeybee health education programs in the United States to familiarize future veterinarians with bees and the diseases that threaten them. The prestige of the program attracted the attention of Dr. Annette Kleiser, CEO of Dalan Animal Health, whose company developed the world’s first honeybee vaccine, which has put UGA at the forefront of honeybee protection.

Dr. Kleiser was working to bring a promising vaccine against American foulbrood disease out of the research lab at the University of Helsinki in Finland and into the marketplace. American foulbrood is a bacterial disease that is highly transmissible in the wild, targeting the larvae of a hive. There is no cure; the entire hive must be burned and buried, per USDA regulations. The spores that cause the disease can remain viable in the environment for up to 40 years.

Image of Veterinary Medical Center residents inspecting a beehive frame under the guidance of Dr. Joerg Mayer.

The effectiveness of the new vaccine was impressive, and Dr. Kleiser knew it had to be placed in wide circulation.

“I was just blown away,” she recalls. “I said, ‘Somebody has to do this.’ We all know it’s a big problem. Bees are dying, and while there are many (reasons) why they’re dying, disease is a major factor. They are livestock and we depend on them, and we’re not going to address pesticides or monocultures any time soon – those are policy decisions – but we know vaccines work, and this research has shown it seems to work in bees. This is something we can do now. We don’t have to wait 20 years.”

Kleiser was living in Los Angeles at the time. Her team at Dalan was virtual – experts scattered throughout the U.S. and the world – but when she saw that approval was at hand, she knew she needed to bring the team together in one location.

“I was contacted by her because she has heard we are one of the very few vet schools that has a bee medicine rotation program. She was intrigued, so she came to visit us in Athens,” Mayer says.

“I had a long wish list of where this should be – a major veterinary school, a major university, close to an international airport, climate where you could have bees and do research with bees not for just two months out of the year but nine or 10 months out of the year, and an animal health presence with companies in the space, talent available,” Kleiser said. “Athens met every single criteria we were looking for.”

Kleiser reached out to Mayer, who showed her the teaching hives and introduced her to Dr. Keith Delaplane, an entomologist who oversees the honeybee program in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The development of the world’s first bee vaccine has made news repeatedly in recent months, culminating most recently with the USDA’s provisional approval of the vaccine. Much like the FDA’s emergency approval of the COVID vaccine during the height of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, this approval will allow Dalan to manufacture and distribute the vaccine while it is still going through final approval.

With Dalan in town and field trials running at UGA, Mayer is looking forward to the future.

“This is an exciting new chapter in veterinary medicine. This has never been done, a vaccine for invertebrates,” he says. “I’m just excited to be a small part of it.”