Vaccines as drivers of disease emergence: transmission ecology and virulence evolution in Marek's disease

See Lead Investigator application to NSF

See Lead Investigator application to NSF

Global demand for food is rising, both as a result of population growth and due to dietary changes in developing countries. Recent UN FAO report on this issue forecasts that food production will need to increase by over 40% by 2030 and by over 70% by 2050. With close to 55 billion chickens reared annually, poultry meat and eggs dominate animal protein products for human consumption world-wide. In the UK, the poultry sector is thought to contribute around £3.4 billion to the economy. Compared to the other livestock sectors, the modern poultry production methods have the most efficient feed-tomeat conversion ratios with lowest global warming potential. Because of these attributes, the poultry production sector will expand significantly to meet the global demand for food in the coming years. Infectious diseases, particularly caused by a plethora of highly contagious viral pathogens, remain a major threat for efficient poultry production. Marek's disease (MD) caused by the highly contagious and oncogenic herpesvirus, Marek's disease virus (MDV), is one of the major diseases of poultry which causes serious economic losses of up to $2,000 million annually. Control of MD is achieved by the use of more than 22,000 million doses of vaccines, with an estimated value of $400 million. Institute for Animal Health has been in the forefront of research on Marek's disease for over 5o years and was instrumental in identifying the causative agent and development of the first MD vaccine. IAH has been collaborating with the Lead Applicant for several years and have demonstrated the significant potential role of vaccines in driving the virulence. Financial benefits from the research on Marek's disease at the Institute for Animal Health was shown in a recent DTZ study (2009) to be at £297 million since 2003/04 with the potential to save up to £1.4 billion. Similarly, another study (PA consultancy 2007) showed that MD vaccines and validation tests developed at IAH contributes to the total worldwide market value of $400 million. The present proposal examining the transmission ecology and virulence evolution in Marek's disease, together with examining the role of vaccines as drivers of disease emergence will have a major impact on our understanding of the disease, the current methods of control and will help to develop new approaches for intervention.