Welcome to the Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory News & Events Webpage!  

Funded Competitive Grants

ADOL scientists are very competitive in obtaining external grants.  These additional funds help us achieve and extend our research goals and mission.  Here is a list of competitive grants received in 2008:

• “Development and field evaluation of genome-wide marker-assisted selection (GWMAS) over multiple generations in commercial poultry” with Dr. Cheng as the lead PI and 18 collaborators including those from Cobb Vantress, Hendrix Genetics, Purdue U., and the U. of Wageningen.  This $2.5 million award was funded by the USDA NRICGP.
• “Positional candidate genes for resistance to Marek’s disease by screening for Marek’s disease virus Meq-regulated genes” by Drs. Cheng (lead PI), Brown (Michigan State U.), and Kung (U. of California), USDA NRICGP.

Visitors

ADOL offers a unique environment for visiting scientists and scholars to get training and work experiences on avian diseases.  In 2008, the following individuals came for an extended period:

• Our laboratory hosted Luka Daba Jwander of the Central Diagnostic Laboratory, National Veterinary Research Institute, Nigeria, and Anna Sergeyevna Mashchenko, chief of the Research and Development Center in Kursk, Russia.  The visitors studied at the ADOL for three months.  Jwander was focused on modern techniques for the detection and diagnosis of avian tumor viruses.  Mashchenko collaborated with ADOL scientists Silva and Heidari on research related to molecular aspects of Marek's disease. These visits are part of ADOL international collaboration efforts on research related to avian tumor viruses.  It is also part of the tasks assigned to ADOL as a World Animal Health Organization (OIE) Reference Laboratory for Marek's disease.
• On February 26,2008, we hosted the USDA-Chinese Delegation at Michigan State University, East Lansing.  The delegation consisted of six Chinese scientists and decision makers representing the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.  The agenda for this visit included a brief presentation of research conducted at ADOL and a tour of the facilities.  The delegates also discussed possible collaborations in various areas of agricultural research, including poultry disease research.
• Our laboratory hosted two Russian scientists, Vadim Plotinkov of NARVAC, Ivanoski Institute of Virology, Moscow and Michail Shulpin of Central Veterinary Research Institute in Vladimir for four weeks training on modern technology used in the diagnosis and research of virus-induced neoplastic diseases of poultry. The visit was sponsored by USDA-ARS-ADOL Former Soviet Union (FSU) research collaboration project (Fadly, Collaborating ARS Scientist) aimed at study of retrovirus-induced neoplastic diseases in poultry in Russian Federation.
• Suryakant Mishra, a visiting scientist from the Central Avian Research Institute, India, was supported by his institution for 6 months in the Cheng lab.  During that period. Dr. Mishra focused on genetic characterization of disease resistance via allele-specific expression.
• Haitham Yacoub, a visiting scientist from the National Research Center, Cairo, Egypt, was supported by an Egyptian government fellowship for 3 months in the Cheng lab, where we focused on candidate genes for disease resistance.
• Evin Hildebrandt, a graduate student from the Genetics Program, Michigan State U., spent 12 weeks rotating in the Cheng lab.
• Jillian Glover, a veterinary student intern sponsored by the Richard and Joan Witter Scholarship Fund, spent the summer at ADOL working with John Dunn.
• Shuang Chang, Ph.D. candidate from Ji Lin University, China, Zhang lab.

Outreach

• Drs. Heidari and Zhang participated in a career fair held at Michigan State U. on October 14.  The goal was to educate graduating students and disseminate information about USDA-ARS and its mission.  Several resumes were collected from interested students and forwarded to the Human Resources Office for consideration.

Welcome

Graduate students and research associates are vital to the health and vitality of the ADOL research program.  We welcome the following new additions in 2008:

• Suga Subramaniam, graduate student in Comparative Medicine and Integrated Biology, MSU joined Cheng’s lab.

In The News

• A paper entitled “Genome-wide assessment of worldwide chicken SNP genetic diversity indicates significant absence of rare alleles in commercial breeds” published in PNAS with Cheng as the corresponding author and includes Zhang and MacEachern as co-authors was featured in many national and international websites including those for the New York Times, Discover magazine, Scientific American, Voice of America, and Forbes.