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Principal Investigator: Dr. Karel Schat
Contact Information: E-mail: kas24@cornell.edu - Phone: 607-253-4032
Sponsor: U.S. Egg and Poultry Association-Georgia
Grant Number: N/A
Title: The Use of Chicken Infectious Anemia Virus-Antibody Complexes to Vaccinate Young Chickens
Annual Direct Cost: $24,348
Project Period: 07/01/05-06/30/07
Chicken infectious anemia virus (CIAV) can cause clinical disease in young chickens lacking maternal antibodies and subclinical immunosuppression when virus infection occurs after maternal antibodies have waned. Current Vaccines are only recommended to vaccinate breeders before sexual maturity in order to induce homogeneous levels of maternal antibodies and to protect against clinical disease (Schat, 2003a). However, this leaves chickens susceptible to the subclinical disease with the potential to aggravate other diseases.
The objective of this proposal is to develop a CIAV-immune complex (CIAV-Icx)-based vaccine that is safe and will protect against subclinical disease when administered to chickens with and without maternal antibodies. To achieve this objective we propose the following specific aims:
a) Determine the optimal level of virus-antibody mixture to neutralize virus in vitro, prepare experimental vaccine batches and confirm that the selected mixtures neutralize the vaccine virus in cell culture.
b) Inoculate one-day-old specific-pathogen-free (SPF) chickens with different virus-antibody mixtures as outlined in the experimental design and determine i) if this mixture causes pathology and ii) if it protects against challenge with CIAV.
c) Determine if the best mixture can be used to vaccinate maternal-antibody positive SPF chickens at one day of age and determine if it protects against challenge with CIAV.
d) Apply the vaccine to commercial, antibody-positive broiler chickens in ovo at 18 days of incubation and determine if these chicks are protected against subclinical disease.
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