CD Laboratory for Innovative Poultry Vaccines

The vaccination of poultry flocks to combat infectious diseases is an essential health prophylaxis to minimise economic damage and increase animal welfare, regardless of the type of farming. Reducing the use of antibiotics is another positive effect of vaccination.

Vaccines are very important in veterinary medicine, especially in livestock, and are the central element of targeted health prophylaxis. However, there are a large number of diseases for which there are currently no vaccines and no possibility of treatment due to the lack of authorised therapeutic agents. One example of this is blackhead disease (histomonosis), which can lead to the loss of the entire turkey flock. Although first described in 1893, many details about the pathogen, the flagellated protozoa Histomonas meleagridis, its life cycle and transmission routes have not yet been fully researched. The laboratory's research topics include the development of diagnostic procedures, the establishment of clonal cultures of the pathogen as well as the identification and further development of vaccine candidates; as there are no live vaccines against flagellates to date, this knowledge - which can also be transferred to other flagellates - is particularly relevant.

Vertical transmission is a key characteristic of chicken adenoviruses and means transmission from the parent birds to the chicks via the egg. As a result, the chicks contract hepatitis, for example, and this can lead to high losses in the flocks. Effective vaccine prophylaxis must therefore start with the parent animals, whereby the variety of different virus strains poses a major problem. The aim is to find new ways of combating the disease through the use and development of vaccines.

Finally, in the case of bacterial diseases, the rapid and targeted identification of the bacteria involved is of crucial importance, as the pathogens often form the basis for stable-specific vaccines to compensate for the lack of vaccines. It is important to characterise the pathogen in as much detail as possible in order to pursue epidemiological questions in a targeted manner. The aim of this laboratory is therefore to use new methods, in particular mass spectrometry, to better characterise the pathogens.

The overall aim of the laboratory is therefore to develop vaccines and vaccination strategies for diseases for which no immunoprophylaxis is yet available.