Grant: Project Grant

Bird flu continues to circulate in wild and domestic birds in Asia and Africa. Occasionally it can infect humans, and is extremely deadly and has killed half of the 850 people that have been infected in the last 10 years. There is real concern that this virus can recombine with other strains and create a new pandemic strain. We are interested in learning what made the genes of these bird flu viruses so lethal in humans. These viruses also upset the natural ecology of host-pathogen interactions in the reservoir host, since they can also kill ducks, which is not typical of most strains that circulate in wild birds. We know some proteins of the virus are able to shut down immunity in mouse and man, and we wonder how the sequences differ from strains that can shut down innate immune signalling in ducks. This will help inform surveillance, since strains that kill ducks may or may not kill humans. Also, when ducks make a protective immune response, we wonder what genes they turn on, and how those proteins work to prevent harm from flu. Finally we plan to put the duck innate sensor in chicken cells and experimental chickens to allow direct comparison of the contribution of this pathway to flu defences.