Mathilde Richard received a prestigious R01 from NIH/NIAID for a total of US $1.83 million. Her team, in collaboration with Aartjan te Velthuis, at Princeton University (US), and David Bauer, at the
Crick’s Institute (UK), will study the viral and host factors that drive the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIV) in terrestrial poultry. HPAIV outbreaks have resulted in billions of poultry deaths through the culling of infected or potentially exposed poultry. Besides these devastating consequences on animal welfare and the poultry industry, spill-over events to humans pose a continuous pandemic threat. Understanding how and why HPAIVs emerge is one the major gap in knowledge of the influenza field that has remained enigmatic for decades.
In this project, an interdisciplinary approach will be taken to look in depth at the molecular mechanisms and natural selection processes underlying HPAIV emergence using molecular virology, biochemistry, RNA and cellular biology, bioinformatics, biophysics and pathology.
