Viral Forest

Abstract

Marek’s disease is an important pathogen of the poultry industry. The causative agent, Marek’s disease virus, is highly cell associated and must be propagated in cell culture. When the virus is grown, risk of contamination is always present and is depicted in this picture. Our research focuses on better ways to produce cell free virus, which would allow the virus to be used without cells. The ability to produce cell free virus would immeasurably benefit the long term goal of our lab—to develop better vaccination strategies for Marek’s disease. Currently, vaccines do not induce sterilizing immunity. The virus is able to replicate without causing clinical signs, but is also able to accumulate mutations that increase viral infectivity.​