The College of Agriculture
and Natural Resources
Diseases are a major threat to Delmarva’s poultry industry, which produces $1.7 billion worth of chicken for domestic consumption and export each year and employs 25,000 people. We are proud that poultry disease research at the College has already resulted in vaccines that save the industry more than $40 million annually.
The $8 million Charles C. Allen Jr. Biotechnology Laboratory is enabling our scientists to develop new and better vaccines and faster, more accurate techniques for diagnosing poultry diseases. Designed to promote cooperative research with the poultry industry,
the lab enables researchers to work with poultry pathogens in a highly controlled environment, according to Jack Rosenberger, Francis Alison professor and chair of the Department of Animal and Food Sciences.
Housing computer-controlled gene sequencers and a host of other equipment necessary for contemporary research, Allen Lab is perhaps the premier poultry research facility in the world. The beneficiaries will be those who enjoy safe, nutritious chicken.
Faculty and student researchers in the College are already investigating many different poultry viruses—including, for example, avian influenza, chicken anemia, infectious bronchitis, bursal disease, laryngotracheitis, Marek's disease, and Newcastle disease. "All of these viruses mutate over time, so we are constantly seeing new strains," explains Jack Gelb Jr., professor of animal and food sciences. "We have to stay one step ahead of these diseases, in terms of our diagnostic and vaccine research."
Vaccines may be developed by manipulating viruses to make them less potent, or by using related viruses derived from another species. The imposter virus can then be used to "trick" the chicken’s immune system into fighting the real disease. Professor of animal and food sciences Robin Morgan is also developing "recombinant" vaccines, which can combat two diseases, using genes derived from two different viruses. Morgan’s research will help growers prevent major losses resulting from Marek’s disease. Ultimately, the work also could serve as "a model for how you might be able to control viral-induced tumors in other species," she says.
Fundamental research about the poultry genome is also under way at the College and should help growers breed healthier, more disease-resistant and nutritious poultry, according to associate professor of animal and food sciences Joan Burnside, who is investigating the immune system of chickens.