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Principal Investigator: Dr. Bettina Wagner
Contact Information: E-mail: bw73@cornell.edu - Phone: 607-253-3813
Sponsor: USDA-University of Massachusetts Amherst (Subcontract Agreement)
Grant Number: 06-003657-A 00
Title: US Veterinary Immune Reagent Network
Annual Direct Cost: $87,896
Project Period: 02/01/06-01/31/09
DESCRIPTION (provided by Dr. Cynthia Baldwin, University of Massachusetts): A major obstacle to advances in veterinary immunology and disease control is the lack of sufficient tools specific for ruminants, swine, poultry, equine and aquaculture species. These tools are needed to study infectious and inflammatory diseases and their development will allow us to devise intervention strategies including vaccines as well as develop new diagnostic tests, which together will improve animal heath.
This proposal presents a broad community plan to begin to systematically address the immunological reagent gap for the US veterinary immunology research community including for the following groups: ruminants (concentrating on cattle), swine, poultry (primarily chickens with some evaluation of reagents on turkey cells), horses and aquaculture species (concentrating on channel catfish and trout) with a goal of 20 reagents per species group. The reagents will include bioactive recombinant cytokines and chemokine proteins, expressed using mammalian, yeast, and bacterial systems, as well as antibodies to them and their receptors as well as antibodies to immunogloulin isotypes, T cell receptors and other CD molecules. The goal is to produce antibodies that function in ELISA and ELISpot assays, for intracellular staining, for blocking function and signaling that are useful in flow cytometric applications as well as in fixed tissue sections. Antibodies to bioactive molecules will also be tested for their ability to block the recombinant molecules as well as natural molecules if it is possible to produce cell culture systems for the later.
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