Marek's disease virus pathogenesis and disease resistance

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Mareks disease (MD) is a highly contagious disease caused by an oncogenic alphaherpesvirus. Control of MD is currently achieved by vaccination with live attenuated vaccines. However, the emergence of more virulent strains of Mareks disease virus (MDV) has indicated that alternative strategies will be required to control this disease in the future. A key objective of this proposal is to identify genes associated with the pathogenesis and latency of MDV infection and to exploit this knowledge to develop disease resistant chickens. The strategy will involve analysing gene function using siRNA technology and generation of chickens expressing siRNA transgenically in order to define gene function during MDV infection. The investigation will focus on known transforming/latency genes such as Meq, as well as characterising genes of unknown function. (Joint with BBS/B/0034 and BBS/B/00174)