Avian coronavirus (infectious bronchitis virus) causes disease in the respiratory, urogenital and digestive tracts of infected birds, and large economic losses to the poultry industry worldwide. The type species (infectious bronchitis virus) predominantly infects domestic chickens (Gallus gallus). While live and inactivated vaccines are available, these offer imperfect and frequently strain-specific protection. Research into improved methods to protect poultry from infectious bronchitis virus disease and infection is urgently needed.
This funding has supported the long-term establishment of avian coronavirus research in my lab, and complements our work on human coronaviruses, enabling our lab to study shared mechanisms and interactions across the coronaviruses, and better target these to support both human and avian health.
Our Houghton Trust-funded work also helped establish collaborations with the Pirbright Institute, yielding preliminary data which was included in our successful Wellcome CDA application in April 2023. This new £2.5M award supports our coronavirus research over the next 8 years, looking at conserved virus replication mechanisms between human and avian coronaviruses to identify targets for intervention or rational attenuation. We are currently continuing our Houghton/MRC-funded research on substrates of avian/human coronavirus proteases respectively as targets for intervention or breeding of resistant poultry.
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