Location: Animal Biosciences & Biotechnology Laboratory
Project Number: 8042-32000-115-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Oct 13, 2021
End Date: Oct 13, 2026
Objective:
Objective 1: Develop immunological tools to evaluate avian immunity.
Sub-objective 1.a. The development of immunological assays and validation of their uses for assessing host immune responses to infectious diseases and vaccination
Sub-objective 1.b. Development of multiplex immunoassays for the simultaneous detection of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines as screening tools to evaluate the efficacy of alternatives to antibiotics feed additives
Objective 2: Develop alternatives to antibiotics for preventing enteric diseases of poultry
Sub-objective 2.a. Discover vaccine platforms that could reduce the use of antibiotics in poultry production and study their modes of action using coccidiosis and necrotic enteritis disease models
Sub-objective 2.a.1. Development of Bacillus subtilis spore-vectored recombinant vaccines against necrotic enteritis using B. subtilis spore surface display technology
Sub-objective 2.a.2. In ovo delivery of recombinant protein vaccines against necrotic enteritis
Sub-objective 2.a.3. Coccidiosis recombinant vaccines delivered with T cell-promoting adjuvants
Sub-objective 2.a.4. Coccidiosis recombinant vaccines, cytokine adjuvants, and Bacillus subtilis spores carrying a chicken antimicrobial peptide, cNK2
Sub-objective 2.b. Develop multi-faceted non-antibiotic approaches for preventing priority enteric diseases of poultry and study their modes of action
Sub-objective 2.c. Determine intestinal metabolites that enhance host immunity, gut health, and growth performance as feed additives and develop antibiotic-free postbiotic strategy to reduce the need for antibiotics in poultry production.
Approach:
Develop novel antibiotic alternative strategies to countermeasures against highly resistance pathogens, Eimeria and Clostridium perfringens, to achieve resiliency in antimicrobial resistance challenges in animal agriculture. Develop critical immune reagents(genes, recombinant cytokines, mAbs)and immunoassays for deciphering host Th1, Th2, Th17 and Treg immune responses to better understand host-pathogen interaction in avian coccidiosis and necrotic enteritis. Develop novel strategies such as vaccines and antibiotic alternatives to beneficially modulate innate host response. Identify potential biomarkers of gut health and assess the levels of gut health biomarkers in vivo.
