His brilliant career
From the October 2008 edition of Agriculture Today.
Leader of the laboratory team that so effectively helped eradicate the State’s equine influenza outbreak earlier this year, Dr Peter Kirkland, has won the Animal and Plant Sciences category in the 2008 NSW Scientist of the Year awards.
Dr Kirkland, head of the virology laboratory at the Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute (EMAI), Camden, is considered an international authority on livestock diseases.
"The NSW award recognises Dr Kirkland’s crucial role during the outbreak and his significant contribution to animal sciences in his 33 year career," Minister for Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald, said.
Dr Kirkland and his virology team provided rapid diagnosis and high throughput testing that limited the spread and enabled eradication of the disease faster than had previously been achieved elsewhere in the world.
Around 135,000 EI tests were processed through EMAI, more than 2300 a day during the peak of the disease.
"Without the fast turnaround of samples, beating EI could have taken much longer, cost millions of dollars more and caused further hardship to those dependent on horses for their income," Mr Macdonald said.
Beating EI was a major milestone in a career of consistently high achievement which Dr Kirkland began with the former NSW Department of Agriculture at Newcastle in 1975.
He has been instrumental in major breakthroughs, identification of new diseases and the development of important diagnostic tests and vaccines.
He led laboratory responses to successive outbreaks of avian influenza and the $70 million outbreak of Newcastle disease in poultry in 1999.
In 2003, when an unknown syndrome resulted in the deaths of thousands of piglets, Dr Kirkland’s laboratory used reverse genetic engineering to identify the myocarditis virus and contain it.
The EMAI laboratories were already well known for having identified and eradicated the Menangle virus which caused severe disease in pigs and a serious illness in humans at another piggery in 1997.
Dr Kirkland’s team also developed a routine diagnostic test for pestiviruses, an effective vaccine for Akabane virus in cattle, both adopted globally, and produced rabbit calicivirus for field release in Australia and New Zealand.
This year Dr Kirkland became a Designated Expert in animal health for the World Health Organisation.
EMAI’s virology laboratory is now ranked as a World Reference Laboratory.
Many diagnostic services and discoveries by Dr Kirkland’s team have been commercialised and are now generating royalties for NSW DPI.
Mr Macdonald said the economic value to the people of NSW of Dr Kirkland’s work should not be underestimated.
"Dr Kirkland has saved millions of dollars by reducing livestock losses and exotic animal disease control costs, generated millions more in revenue for the State through the commercial application of his work and helped facilitate significant trade income through the international free trade of safe animal genetic material," he said.
Dr Kirkland was also a finalist in last month’s CSIRO Prize for Leadership in Science at the Australian Museum Eureka Prizes.
He is president of the World Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians.
