Infrastructure for poultry viral immunology studies

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Development of new vaccines and treatments for diseases has been identified as a priority research area by the Canadian poultry industry. Due to economic and public health significance, the cost of control measures and also due to the problems of existing control measures, the impact of diseases caused by respiratory viral infections on the poultry industry is enormous. The emergence of severe disease-causing strains of the viruses has become a common problem and, as a result, disease outbreaks now frequently occur in vaccinated flocks. Therefore, it is vital to identify sustainable control measures against respiratory viruses in chickens. The proposed infrastructure, which includes high containment poultry isolation units and biosafety cabinets, will support a research program to investigate innate immunity elicited against respiratory viral infections. The research program is expected to provide a fundamental understanding of innate immune mechanisms induced in the respiratory mucosa against viral infections. Due to the translational nature of the research, the findings of our program will serve as a basis for the development of novel control measures against respiratory viral infections in chickens. Given the non-specific nature of innate immune responses, one may envision the potential of applying the same principle to other poultry microbial infections that are important in both the chicken and turkey industries. This will promote collaborations among institutions in Canada and elsewhere. Acute shortages of highly qualified research personnel capable of collaborating with the poultry industry has created a constraint identified by both the Canadian poultry industry as well as supporting federal agencies. To address this problem, the poultry industry has established an initiative to support graduate studies in poultry science. Citizenship and Immigration Canada has started a process of providing temporary visas to attract poultry scientists from other North American countries to work in Canada. Given this background, the research program with the aid of requested infrastructure would provide a long-term benefit by making highly qualified personnel available to address long-term health problems confronting the Canadian poultry industry.