U.S. Researcher Wins $1.9 Million USDA Grant to Develop Novel Bird Flu Vaccine

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has awarded a three-year, $1.9 million grant to a researcher at the University of Missouri School of Medicine and the College of Veterinary Medicine to develop a novel vaccine against highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) (“bird flu”) and Newcastle disease—another fatal, viral disease that can affect poultry.^{1 2 3}

“The HPAI H5N1 infection has caused significant economic losses for our farmers, like the egg shortages, and several issues with food safety and international trade,” said Wenjun Ma, PhD, professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the MU School of Medicine and a pathobiology and integrative biomedical sciences professor at the MU College of Veterinary Medicine.^{1 2 3}

“Right now, outbreaks cannot be effectively controlled, despite best efforts to depopulate domestic birds on impacted and neighboring farms. This grant will help us develop a new vaccine that can differentiate infected animals from vaccinated ones, which will help curb current outbreaks in domestic poultry,” added Ma.^{1 2}

Dr. Ma and his team, which will include MU professor of genomics Wesley Warren, PhD and John Driver, PhD, MU associate professor of animal sciences, will seek to understand how cells from a chicken’s lung communicate with each other and how the pulmonary network rewires itself after an HPAI infection. The researchers plan to test the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines in chickens and turkeys.^{2 4 5}

According to Ma:

Developing this vaccine will benefit U.S. farmers, poultry producers, stakeholders and anyone who may consume chicken or eggs. It will also help protect international trade and ensure that HPAI does not spread to any human, sparing them from a disease for which we have no treatment.^{1 2}

Ma’s Research Has Focused on Genetically Modifying Chickens Against Bird Flu

Like most research, the project has many steps before it can produce a genetically edited chicken. First, the lab must find the gene within chickens that allows virus infection. After that, the lab can edit the gene to make the chicken resistant to avian influenza. To complete the project, the chicken would be exposed to the virus to confirm its resistance.⁶

DHHS Cancelled Moderna Contract to Develop mRNA Bird Flu Vaccine

The grant to Ma comes less than a year after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) terminated a $766 million contract to Moderna, Inc. to develop an mRNA vaccine against flu strains, including H5N1 bird flu virus. The move was based on concerns about the safety of mRNA technology and the belief that it was “undertested” and thus not “scientifically or ethically justifiable.”⁷

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