 Next time you eat eggs, spare a thought for Professor Siripto. In the 1980s he made an incredible discovery, which means today poultry products are healthier for consumers around the world. He made this finding at the University of Melbourne while studying under the Australian Government's Colombo Plan scholarships, today known as the Australia Awards. My inspiration doing fat science is to elevate the farmer from the poverty line. Back in the 1980s a war chest of antibiotics was an essential weapon in the fight against chronic respiratory disease in commercial chickens. If a flock became infected with the most common strain known as microplasma gallecepticum, farmers stood to lose everything. We, as part of our investigations, discovered that strains of m-gallecepticum were becoming resistant to the major class of antibiotics that were used for treatment. I realised that the best way of approaching this would be to try and develop a vaccine. In 1982 I went to Australia for doing PhDs. I met Kevin Whittier as a supervisor. He asked me to do or to develop a life-atténuated vaccine of microplasma gallecepticum. As a PhD candidate in bacteriology, Professor Siripto exposed the bacteria to a particular chemical. He discovered a way to grow a vaccine at the lower temperatures of a chicken's trachea. This allowed the bird to create antibodies without getting infected. Today the vaccine is known as TS11. When it looked as though TS11 was a promising vaccine candidate, what we had to do was a lot more investigative work required by the regulators in order to register the vaccine, both here in Australia and overseas. We decided to reorganise ourselves and form an institutional centre within the University of Melbourne. And because of this we created the institute called the Asia Pacific Centre for Animal Health, or APCA. Professor Siripto's discovery also launched a new company. In 1989 scientific entrepreneurs started bioproperties with the sole purpose of working with APCA to commercialise the new vaccine on a global scale. Today over 100 million doses of the vaccine are used worldwide every year. Here at Kinross Farm we run a large commercial egg business. We farm approximately 770,000 layers across about 11 sites in Victoria. The farm was established by my parents in 1965. My understanding from my parents and older veterinarians is that, pre the early 90s, that the industry was a heavy use of antibiotics. The adoption of the MG vaccine by the egg industry has been universal. It would be well over 95% of all birds placed today would be covered by the MG vaccine. So in this marketplace we can't be without the MG vaccine. They used to bring antibiotics in by the boat load, containers to control this infection and now it doesn't happen. The reduction in use of antibiotics by the poultry industry has public health implications and that's I think been one of the major benefits of the development of these vaccines. Professor Syripto has also achieved his dream of helping farmers in developing countries. The vaccine reduces their losses, securing livelihoods and jobs. In Indonesia, most of the breeding farm now using TS-11. Using antibiotics also becomes less and less I feel happy that I can contribute my knowledge for the world. What started as an Australian government scholarship back in the 1980s has become a healthier way of managing a common disease affecting commercial chickens. This is benefiting poultry farmers and consumers around the world.