The Groundbreakers program is committed to delivering impact for Australia’s agrifood system, ensuring food security, nutrition and sustaining environmental and economic resilience.
Ms Scerri was recognised for her work in proactively addressing antimicrobial resistance, a growing sustainability challenge in the dairy industry.
“My research aims to design alternatives to antibiotic treatments that can be used to treat mastitis in dairy cattle,” Ms Scerri said.
“When antibiotics become practically redundant in Australia, the dairy industry needs to be prepared with alternative solutions.
“Mastitis is one of the biggest health, welfare and production problems within the dairy industry worldwide; the Australian dairy industry can’t afford to be lax in its management of antimicrobial resistance.”
Dairy Australia has estimated mastitis costs up to $400 per infected cow in treatment and veterinary costs, discarded milk, lower milk yield, farm labour and risk of removal from the herd or death of the cow.
Between five and 10 per cent of the typical Australian dairy herd is infected by mastitis each year.
Globally, mastitis costs the world’s dairy industry around US$32 billion each year.
Specifically, Ms Scerri is testing the viability of several nucleotide and protein-based treatments that she has designed to target key bacteria that cause mastitis.
Her research is due to be completed in 2027.
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