STORY CONTACT: Greg Bohach, (208) 885-6666, gbohach@uidaho.edu
MEDIA CONTACT: Bill Loftus, (208) 885-7694, bloftus@uidaho.edu

The University of Idaho and South Korea’s Seoul National University are working jointly to overcome problems generated by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. It causes mastitis, the inflammation of cows’ udders, that can cripple milk production in a dairy. It also causes toxic shock syndrome and food poisoning in humans.

University of Idaho microbiologist Greg Bohach is working with Yong Ho Park, a colleague at Seoul National University, to test potential vaccines against staph bacteria.

The cooperation between Idaho and Seoul National University advanced another step in September with a visit to Korea by a UI contingent led by President Bob Hoover and the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two universities.

"We’re trying to figure out what the various preparations we have made do to cells," Bohach said. The preparations are toxins that have been slightly altered to neutralize their poisonous qualities.

Some vaccines against staph are already on the market but none have been able to provide complete immunity, Bohach said. The bacteria are able to suppress the body’s normal immune response through the production of enterotoxins in an infection. Bohach first began studying the toxins in 1985, then began focusing on mastitis when he arrived at Idaho in 1988.

The researchers hope the new proteins, which have been patented by the University of Idaho, will stimulate animals’ immune systems. Bohach focuses on laboratory tests of how the preparations work directly in cells while Park is focusing his efforts on animal studies. His Korean lab is testing the preparations on mice but in the near future plans to scale up to include cows.

Bohach and Park began cooperating informally while the latter scientist was earning his doctorate in veterinary medicine at Washington State University, which he completed in the early 1990s. Park helped teach Bohach’s students laboratory techniques then. Now two Korean PhD candidates are visiting Greg and Carolyn Bohachs’ labs on the Moscow campus and the two scientists have each visited the other’s university to conduct seminars.

The mastitis riddle bears huge economic consequences, costing the dairy industry an estimated $1.5 to $2 billion a year. The international partnership offers both researchers advantages in their bid to solve the problem. "Our university’s dairy herd is smaller than theirs so access to animals is easier there," Bohach said. "We do most of the basic molecular biology work in my lab."

Bohach said understanding how staph bacteria can suppress immune systems could help unravel how diseases such as cancer and AIDS defeat the body’s natural defenses. "We’re really the first investigators to do a detailed study of how these toxins affect the immune systems of ruminants," he added.

Using the altered toxins, the researchers found activation markers on white blood cells that are triggered by the toxin. No similar markers have yet been found in human cells. "This, I think is a major breakthrough," Bohach added. "What we’re learning in animals may help us treat human disease as well."

In addition to the Korea connection, the UI’s cooperative arrangements to study the toxic bacteria extends across the state line to Washington State University, eight miles away. Bohach and fellow UI researchers Ken Bayles and Witold Ferens, joined with WSU researchers Larry Fox, Bill Davis and John Middleton to form the Staphylococcus Aureus Mastitis Research Institute.

Bohach’s work has drawn more than $2 million in funding from United Dairymen of Idaho, the UI Agricultural Experiment Station, U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Institutes of Health. His latest grant totals $180,000 from USDA and includes SAMRI colleagues at WSU.