Grant: Operating Grant

Bird flu continues to circulate in Asia, and there is very real concern that it could recombine with human strains and create a new pandemic. Bird flu is extremely deadly and has killed over 60% of the 600 people it has infected in the last 10 years. We are interested in learning from the natural host how to combat and survive avian influenza. Ducks, but not chickens or humans, can survive many strains of bird flu. With our last grant, we showed that ducks, but not chickens, have a functional flu detector called RIG-I. Humans also have this flu detector gene, but the virus has mastered several ways of shutting it down. In this project we want to learn how this detector is activated by flu in ducks, and how ducks avoid the numerous ways that flu shuts it down in humans. By learning this, we hope that we can devise ways to stop the virus from shutting down our protective responses when we are critically ill with flu. Also, we can understand what changes can happen in the flu virus under strong immune selective pressure. Finally, we will identify the proteins in ducks that work to prevent harm from flu. Some of these may open new avenues for medical intervention in critically ill patients.