Veterinary medicine
Department of infectious and parasitic diseases
Veterinary Virology and animal viral Diseases
Research
The main research objective is the study of host-virus interactions of animal viruses and their molecular genetic, especially alphaherpesviruses, caliciviruses and orbiviruses.
The unit has a long tradition of research on ruminant herpesviruses, especially bovine herpesvirus 1, responsible for infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR), a disease with serious economic repercussion in Europe. Research in veterinary and human public health concerns genetic relationships of foodborne human viruses, especially noroviruses (previously known as Norwalk-like caliciviruses), also detected in several animal species. The unit works on viral DNA replication and intramolecular recombination in alphaherpesviruses, the development of new generation vaccines and new adjuvants for intranasal live vaccines. The unit also carries out investigations on emergent canine and feline viruses and studies the evolution of feline calicivirus populations. The emergence of bluetongue in northern Europe has opened a new area of research dealing with the pathogenesis of this infection in bovines.
In addition to research activities, the unit can offer several services: clinical trial for safety and efficacy of veterinary viral vaccines, expression of viral genes in prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems, virological analyses of clinical samples and analyses of control strategy for viral diseases of domestic animals. The research is performed in a fully equipped virology laboratory of biosafety levels 2 and 3.