US team wins award for advances in avian disease genetics
Five-decade project delivers vaccines, tools and industry impact
18 November 2025
2 minute read
By: A team of scientists from across the US studying how genetics influence a bird’s ability to fight disease received the 2025 Excellence in Multistate Research Award from agInnovation, a national organisation that supports research administrators in colleges of agriculture. The long-running project is supported by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture through its Hatch Act Multistate Research Fund, according to a recent press release from USDA NIFA.
Avian diseases such as avian influenza, Marek’s disease and Newcastle disease cause serious economic losses each year and can pose health risks for other animals, including humans. Active since 1968, this project has made significant advances that support a strong poultry industry in which poultry are healthy, producers are confident, competitive and profitable, and consumers have a reliable supply of safe, high-quality poultry products. This award celebrates the project’s 57-year legacy of collaboration, innovation and impact and recognizes the project’s recent outstanding achievements.
Led by researchers at 11 Land-grant Universities and supported by partners from the poultry industry, government agencies and other institutions worldwide, this project adapts to emerging avian disease threats, integrates cutting-edge technologies, and responds to stakeholder needs. Working together for more than five decades has allowed project members to share resources, avoid duplicating efforts and build specialized expertise. Together, they have developed and maintained important poultry breeding lines with known genetic characteristics, resources that have led to key discoveries about immunity and disease resistance.
These discoveries have directly led to new vaccines and tools used across the poultry industry. For example, project members discovered, developed and patented the principal component of the Marek’s disease vaccines now used by virtually all poultry companies globally. Research on poultry immune response to Salmonella and Campylobacter, two major causes of foodborne illness, may lead to safer food for consumers. Studies on heat-tolerant birds will help farmers raise poultry that can stay healthy in warmer climates. Newly identified feed amendments may strengthen poultry immune responses.
The project’s economic impact is substantial. Poultry companies worldwide have integrated project findings and tools, such as genetic screening tools and vaccines, into their breeding programs and flock management practices. In addition to reducing flock losses, these advances have helped producers rely less on antibiotics.
Project members share findings, tools, and methods with producers, breeders, vaccine developers, veterinarians, and other stakeholders. In addition to book chapters, technical reports, and outreach materials, researchers have published more than 1,100 articles in journals. Twenty-five percent of those articles are co-authored by project members from multiple institutions, demonstrating the project’s longstanding commitment to collaboration.
