Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) PhD candidate Jong-Yeol Park (Department of Veterinary Medicine) recently presented his research on vaccine development capable of protecting chickens from infectious diseases at the 2023 Autumn International Conference of the Korean Veterinary Medical Association held in Jeju and received the Excellent Presentation Award.

At the conference, Park presented research entitled "Construction and evaluation of recombinant herpesvirus of turkey(HVT) expressing VP2 protein of antigenic variant infectious bursal disease virus(avIBDV) and HA protein of Y280-lineage of H9N2 avian influenza virus(AIV)" (Advisor: Min Kang).

Park applied gene-editing (CRISPR/Cas9) technology to turkey herpesvirus (HVT) to insert the genes of a Chinese-type antigenic variant infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) and low-pathogenic avian influenza (H9N2 Y280), respectively, and developed a multivalent recombinant viral vector vaccine. Efficacy evaluations confirmed that the vaccine can fully protect chickens against Gumboro disease (infectious bursal disease) and low-pathogenic avian influenza.

This approach enables a single vaccine to protect against two distinct variant viruses circulating in the field, which is expected to increase vaccination efficiency in practice.

Park stated, "Given the current emergence of various variant viral diseases beyond these two, this technology is expected to be highly effective. I will devote further effort to developing a multivalent vaccine capable of preventing multiple variant viruses."

Meanwhile, last month Park also received the Excellent Presentation Award at the Korean Poultry Science Association for "Development of a recombinant viral vector vaccine using CRISPR gene-editing technology in turkey herpesvirus."