Porcine disease research gets boost from USDA

Urbana, Ill.

- A $400,000, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine will help provide more clues about how the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus evades the immune system.

The grant was awarded to Dr. Dongwan Yoo, a researcher at the school who has spent more than a decade studying PRRS and in the past has identified two proteins in the virus that likely help it evade detection by a pig's immune system, according to the university.

The department of pathobiology at the university, where Yoo conducts his research, will use the funding to further study how the PRRS virus shuts down the inferon response, allowing the virus to go undetected by a pig's body. Yoo will try to create a mutant PRRS virus that triggers a normal immune response instead of suppressing the inferon response in hopes it can be used to create a vaccine against the disease, the school says.

Other researchers included in the study are Dr. Federico Zuckermanm, Dr. William Laegreid and Dr. Larry Firkins.