NEIKER, Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development, animal health department

Key facts

• NEIKER is a public company owned by the Basque Government, constituted in 1998 to take over the activities of the CIMA research centre and the SIMA service, with roots in an 1851 model farm at Arkaute and in the Basque Livestock Laboratory created at Derio in 1975; it joined Tecnalia in late 2006, which is why papers of that period carry the name Neiker-Tecnalia, and became a BRTA member in 2019.
• The animal health department ran its own sheep TSE research line in the 2000s. A 2004 Veterinary Record paper from the Derio animal health department genotyped PrP codons 136, 154 and 171 in 1297 Latxa and Carranzana sheep and found ARQ/ARQ most common at 49.3 percent and the resistant ARR/ARR genotype in 5 percent, work funded by Basque Government grants SPE2001012 and EC2001-3.
• The same group published differential gene expression in the central nervous system of sheep with natural scrapie in Brain Research in February 2006, reporting GFAP and CASP3 up-regulation in obex and cerebrum.
• In March 2010 NEIKER animal health authors, with Sylvie Benestad of the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, described eight atypical Nor98 scrapie outbreaks detected in Spain between 2002 and 2009, all in Latxa sheep with a mean age of about 7.9 years, and concluded that atypical scrapie is the most common small ruminant TSE in Latxa sheep in the Basque Country.
• The department has also co-authored human prion papers from the Basque Country, including an October 2010 BMC Neurology case report of a protease-sensitive prion protein disease written with Basque epidemiological surveillance, hospital neurology and pathology colleagues and with the UPV-EHU, and a 2012 case report in Journal of Medical Case Reports; only the institutional co-authorship is recorded here.
• Since 2019 the NEIKER animal health affiliation, carried by M. Geijo, appears on eleven prion papers from the CIC bioGUNE prion research laboratory, last-authored by Joaquin Castilla: the 2019 scalable in vitro propagation method, the 2022 atypical scrapie rodent model, the 2023 spontaneous formation study, the 2024 PMSA method paper, the 2025 cofactor paper (where the department head J. Garrido also carries the NEIKER affiliation), two 2025 cervid and bank vole papers, the 2025 strain emergence paper and three papers from January and February 2026.
• The 2022 atypical scrapie model paper shows the company NEIKER keeps in that work: IRTA-CReSA, the University of Salamanca transgenic facility, CIC bioGUNE, ATLAS Molecular Pharma, CIBERINFEC, the Zaragoza encephalopathies centre, the Istituto Superiore di Sanita, CIMUS Santiago, CISA-INIA, INRA Jouy-en-Josas and Colorado State University.
• The University of Zaragoza prion centre lists "Instituto de investigacion NEIKER del Pais Vasco" among its seven national TSE collaborators, alongside the Instituto Cajal, the University of Leon, PRIOCAT, the Alcorcon human autopsy reference centre, CISA and CIC bioGUNE; no dates are given.
• NEIKER's own current description of its animal health work does not include prions. The three published research lines are livestock disease epidemiology focused on paratuberculosis, tuberculosis and ruminant reproductive disease, zoonosis and food safety, and environmental biosecurity and vectors; the words prion, TSE, scrapie and encephalopathy do not appear.
• The animal health laboratory at Arkaute and Derio sells diagnosis of ruminant reproductive disease, mycobacteriosis, ruminant viral diseases and swine leptospirosis, stud cattle health control, feed microbiology and milk pathogen detection, with a list of ENAC accredited tests. No TSE or scrapie test is offered on that page and no reference laboratory status is claimed.
• Spain's TSE confirmation chain runs through authorised regional laboratories, which must send doubtful or positive rapid post-mortem samples to the Laboratorio Central de Veterinaria at Algete. The University of Zaragoza veterinary faculty held the national reference laboratory role for animal TSEs from 2000 to 30 September 2026; from 1 October 2026 Orden PJC/1015/2026 designates Algete for TSEs and names no Zaragoza laboratory. No source names NEIKER, and the regional authorised laboratory lists were not found, so NEIKER's formal role in official scrapie testing is unknown.

Timeline

1. 1975The Basque Livestock Laboratory is created at Derio, the site of today's animal health department.
2. 1998NEIKER is constituted as a public company of the Basque Government.
3. 2004Vet Rec paper from the Derio animal health department on PrP polymorphisms in 1297 Latxa and Carranzana sheep.
4. 2006Brain Research paper on gene expression in the central nervous system of sheep with natural scrapie.
5. 2006NEIKER joins the Tecnalia corporation, the origin of the Neiker-Tecnalia name on papers of that period.
6. 2010BMC Veterinary Research report of eight atypical Nor98 scrapie outbreaks in Basque Latxa sheep, 2002 to 2009.
7. 2010BMC Neurology case report of protease-sensitive prion disease co-authored from the NEIKER animal health department with Basque health service and hospital colleagues.
8. 2019NEIKER becomes a member of BRTA.
9. 2019First CIC bioGUNE recombinant prion propagation method paper carrying the NEIKER animal health affiliation.
10. 2022Acta Neuropathologica Communications paper reproducing bona fide atypical scrapie in a rodent model, with NEIKER among 14 institutions.
11. 2024PMSA method paper in Nature Communications, NEIKER among the partner institutions.
12. 2026Brain Pathology paper on the L108I mouse prion protein model, NEIKER affiliation still present.