Grant: Alliance Grants

Antibiotic-free and safe animal products are the most desirable among consumers. By far, chicken is Canada's most popular protein compared to other meats. The Canadian chicken industry is committed to improving animal welfare and raising pathogen-and antibiotics-free chicken products. When the prophylactic antibiotic use is discontinued, the infection rate of pathogenic bacteria increases in chicken, causing heavy losses to the chicken industry and promoting therapeutic antimicrobial use. Ensuring safe and wholesome poultry products on the Canadian plate is a challenging task, which can be accomplished if the chicken industry can detect and prevent diseases at the earliest stage before the outbreak. In this proposal, a team of experts from the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta will collaborate with two chicken industry partners (Canadian Poultry Research Council, Chicken Farmers of Saskatchewan) to conduct novel research to discover metabolite-based beacons (biomarkers) of subclinical infections. Just as canaries serve as sensitive indicators of coalmines problems for coal miners, blood metabolites (the end-products of host and pathogen metabolism) can communicate an alarm to the commercial poultry farms, enabling an early response to prevent disease outbreaks. Novel metabolic biomarkers-based diagnostics for early detection of infections before disease outbreaks will help prevent the infection from spreading within a flock and decrease therapeutic antibiotics use, improve poultry welfare, and reduce production cost and enhance the quality and the safety of poultry products for Canadian consumers.