Professor Polly Roy discusses her team's new vaccines for bluetongue: a lethal midge-borne disease of sheep, which is related to human diseases, including rotavirus infection. The vaccines — one already under development by a pharmaceutical company, the other at an advanced stage of laboratory testing — have been designed at the molecular level following clarification of the gene structures within the bluetongue virus. This makes them intrinsically safe to use, avoiding the need to use weakened forms of the actual virus for inoculation.