Kim Dae-min, a graduate student at the Institute for Molecular Biology and Genetics (supervised by Professor Tak Dong-seob), recently won the Poster Excellence Award at the 2021 KSMCB International Conference organized by the Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology.

The award-winning research concerns the selection of a virus for vaccine production to prevent porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), a major problem in the domestic swine industry. The causative virus is a coronavirus similar to SARS-CoV-2, but it causes gastrointestinal rather than respiratory infection. When it infects suckling piglets, it induces severe diarrhea that can be fatal, making it the leading cause of loss at swine farms.

Most currently available PED vaccines were developed for intramuscular administration. However, because effective prevention of gastrointestinal infection requires an oral vaccine, the key achievement of this study is that it secured a virus suitable for producing an oral vaccine.

Based on these results, the research team plans to pursue industrialization in collaboration with a veterinary pharmaceutical manufacturer. The developed vaccine is expected to make a significant contribution to increasing farm incomes.

Meanwhile, this research was supported by the Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry (Project No. 120089-2).