USPOULTRY and the USPOULTRY Foundation announce the completion of a funded research project at North Carolina State University in which researchers investigated a novel method for enumeration and characterisation of coccidia in poultry.

The research was made possible in part by an endowing Foundation gift from Perdue Farms and is part of the Association’s comprehensive research programme encompassing all phases of poultry and egg production and processing.

A brief summary of the completed project is shown below. A complete report, along with information on other Association research, may be obtained through US Poultry's website. The project summary is as follows.

Project #718: A novel method for enumeration and speciation of Eimeria species of coccidian protozoa by flow cytometry

(Dr Rocio Crespo, Department of Population Health and Pathobiology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC)

Dr Rocio Crespo and colleagues recently completed a research project with the objective of developing a non-antibody flow cytometry-based diagnostic method for simultaneous enumeration and speciation of coccidian protozoa.

Although additional field samples need to be tested and analysed, preliminary results showed this novel method to be reliable for counting and speciating four common Eimeria sp. of chickens.