History of ADOL

The Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory (ADOL) previously known as the Regional Poultry Research Laboratory was originally established to study avian leukosis, a group of cancer like diseases that were and still are one of the most important causes of mortality in chickens. Two important diseases of this group that have been studied extensively by laboratory scientists are Marek's disease, caused by a herpesvirus, and lymphoid leukosis, caused by a retrovirus. These diseases are less prevalent now because of accomplishments by laboratory scientists leading to vaccines for Marek's disease and the partial eradication of lymphoid leukosis. These diseases, however, still cause important losses in chickens due to mortality, reduced egg production, and broiler condemnation. Scientists at the Laboratory are conducting research to further reduce losses from these and other viral diseases in chickens and turkeys to make poultry food products cheaper and of higher quality for consumers.

Established by the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on August 8, 1939, the Laboratory supports and complements the efforts of Federal, State, and industry scientists throughout the United States. Located on a 50 acre tract bordered by Michigan State University, the Laboratory houses about 45 full time employees, including 8 scientists. The site permits close cooperation among personnel of the Laboratory, the Michigan State Agricultural Experiment Station, and the teaching, research, and extension facilities of Michigan State University. Disciplines represented by the laboratory scientists include genetics, virology, immunology, pathology, epidemiology, and molecular biology.

Research programs of the Laboratory are conducted in laboratory facilities, equipped with state of the art instrumentation. Within the 15,000 square foot main laboratory building are individual research units equipped for the conduct of molecular biology, virology, immunology and other procedures. The Laboratory has a library, and maintains specialized collections of viruses, cell lines, and other biological materials.

Laboratory grounds include 24 additional buildings, mostly for housing breeding and experimental chickens. Many of these are containment buildings which have been renovated and equipped with filtered air positive pressure systems or isolation cages to prevent accidental spread of infection to housed chickens or to the environment. High security isolators, modified so all waste products are sterilized by heat or filtration, are used to contain high risk pathogens and organisms modified by recombinant DNA technology. A major facilities improvement program to upgrade existing and provide additional laboratory space as well as a complete replacement of the animal biocontainment facility has been planned.

Through extensive inbreeding of chickens for more than 40 years, laboratory scientists have developed lines with special characteristics of value to research programs in neoplastic diseases. They maintain as many as thirteen lines and sublines with a variety of defined characteristics for in-house and collaborative research. Included are those that resist or are susceptible to infection and tumor induction by Marek's disease, avian leukosis, or Rous sarcoma viruses. Other lines have varying degrees of histocompatibility, different alleles at the major histocompatibility complex, or different endogenous retroviral gene expression. These chickens are maintained in a quarantined state and, on the basis of frequent serologic tests, are considered to be free of infection with most of the common poultry pathogens. These specialized lines constitute a unique resource, not duplicated elsewhere in the world, for the Laboratory's research program and for the scientific community.

ADOL Policy for providing fertile eggs from various chicken lines to other laboratories

Based on availability, the ADOL will provide fertile eggs, from various chicken lines maintained at ADOL, to researchers and diagnosticians at other laboratories. To help defray part of the cost of producing these fertile eggs, recipients will be charged a predetermined fee per fertile egg plus shipping cost. The ADOL is not able to guarantee percent fertility/hatchability of fertile eggs shipped through common carriers because ADOL has no control on transit conditions and most of eggs are produced by inbred lines where fertility and/or hatchability cannot be predicted. For further information, contact ADOL Farm Manager, Raj Kulkarni; e-mail <kulkarn@msu.edu>; phone number 517-337-6614.

Current Leadership at ADOL

Dr. Aly M. Fadly was appointed as the new Research Leader and Laboratory Director of the USDA-ARS Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory (ADOL) in February of 1998.  Dr. Fadly, a native of Cairo , Egypt , received his Veterinary Degree from Cairo University in 1964 and Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in 1973 and 1975, respectively from Purdue University . After working as assistant professor at the school of Veterinary Medicine , Purdue University , he joined the staff of ADOL in December 1976. During the last 28 years, Dr. Fadly’s research program at ADOL has been focused on immunopathogenesis, epidemiology and control of two groups of avian retroviruses, avian leukosis virus and reticuloendotheliosis virus. To date, his research is documented in 158 publications including peer-reviewed journals, 14 book chapters, and conference proceedings. He has received a number of awards and citations for his contributions to the understanding of avian retrovirus induced diseases including two P.P. Levine Research Awards giving by the American Association of Avian Pathologists for the best papers published in Avian Diseases, the Upjohn Achievement Award for distinguish contributions to Avian Medicine and the American Veterinary Medical Foundation Excellence in Poultry Research Award sponsored by Pfizer Animal Health. He is also a Diplomate of the American College of Poultry Veterinarians and an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Pathobiology and Clinical Investigation at Michigan State University . He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal Avian Diseases and is an Associate Editor of the 11th edition of the textbook, Diseases of Poultry.

Leadership's vision for Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory (ADOL)

Since its establishment in 1939, the ADOL previously known as the Regional Poultry Research Laboratory has always provided the necessary leadership in solving problems in neoplastic and other viral diseases of poultry. The research conducted at the ADOL has been contributing significantly to reducing losses from these diseases in chickens and turkeys and consequently making poultry food products cheaper and of higher quality for consumers.

As the current Research Leader and Laboratory Director of ADOL, I am committed to helping the poultry industry through excellence in research, and thereby maintaining and perhaps adding to the excellent national and international stature of the laboratory. I believe that in order for ADOL to continue to provide solutions to various issues regarding effective control of losses from avian tumor viruses as well as other virus infections of poultry, we must strive to use basic and applied multi-disciplinary team approaches. Our team approach to solving such problems has been strengthened in recent years by the genome mapping research efforts of ADOL.

I believe that the ADOL embarks on this millennium with great pride in past accomplishments and with a commitment for renewed dedication to the challenges of the future. The leadership role and research contributions of ADOL to poultry health and biomedical research in an increasingly competitive research environment is a challenge that ADOL must be willing to embrace to be successful in the future. Emphasis on molecular approaches to understand the structure and epidemiology of disease agents and to develop effective methods for diagnosis and control of such agents will make research more complex, but provide new tools for contemporary approaches. The success of our chicken genomics and immunogenetics project is essential to the success of the overall research program at ADOL. With the generation of the draft chicken genome sequence, millions of sequence polymorphisms, and high-throughput and economical genomic and functional genomics equipment, our abilities to connect genotypes with phenotypes has never been greater. It is our firm belief that integrated genomic and immunological approaches will reveal a number of important genetic components and biological pathways that influence resistance to disease and production traits. In turn, these results will lead to superior chickens through either traditional breeding (e.g., marker-assisted selection), alternative strategies (e.g., pathogen derived resistance or gene silencing), or improved biologics (e.g., vaccines). If any, the methods being implemented by the genomics group can be transferred to other scientists at the location, which would provide a technological advantage.

Issues regarding our limited resources and aging facility have been and will be faced in the future forthrightly. During the last five years, we have been successful in documenting our needs for additional operating funds in order to have a viable research program at ADOL. During this period (FY-1999 to FY-2004), the United States Congress approved three program increases for ADOL to enhance research efforts in Avian Leukosis, Marek’s Disease and Chicken Genomics. In addition, the ADOL staff is and has been very successful in obtaining outside funds through competitive grants, cooperative research and trust funds agreements. Availability of these extramural financial resources has also strengthened and assured the viability of our research program. Plans to improve our facilities started several years back; the United States Congress appropriated a total of $2,262,000.00 (FY-1992 $250,000.00; FY-1993, $212,000.00, and in FY-1998 $1,800,000.00) for planning, pre design and design phases of the ADOL renovation project. The design phase was completed in 2003. To date, construction is pending approval of funds.

Finally, on behalf of the entire staff and all of my predecessors at ADOL, I wish to express my sincere appreciation to those who have supported and are supporting the ADOL mission.

Our Home Website:

 Http://www.ars.usda.gov/mwa/lansing/ADOL