First Lohmann and K. A. Schat Scientific Award 2012

Abstract

Even in 2013—more than 40 years after the first vaccine became available—Marek’s disease (MD) is still an important concern in the poultry industry. Outbreaks in commercial poultry flocks still pose a huge danger and an enormous commercial risk. It seems that using MD vaccines created a vicious circle: the more vaccination takes place, the more virulent the current field strains become, resulting in the demand for vaccines with steadily increasing efficacy and thus researchers who are striving to better understand the disease and to develop such improved vaccines. In June 2012 the Ninth International Symposium on Marek’s Disease and Avian Herpesviruses took place at the Freie Universitat Berlin. Some 120 scientists from 22 countries provided for an excellent and highly informative congress. One of the highlights was the presentation of the First Lohmann and K. A. Schat Scientific Award to recognize excellent performance by young researchers in the field of MD virus (MDV) research. This award was initiated 2 years ago by Prof. Karel Schat, who in the 1970s isolated the MDV strain SB-1 that is still used across the globe as a vaccine today. His great wish is to motivate young scientists to orient their research and future career toward MDV. Lohmann Animal Health, a well-known producer of poultry vaccines, is in complete agreement with Prof. Schat’s intentions and has not hesitated to pledge support. The jury, including Dr. Rahaus (Lohmann), Prof. Schat (Cornell University), and Prof. Parcells (University of Delaware), was faced with the hard task of choosing a winner. In the end the first prize was awarded to Julia Schermuly from the Institute for Animal Physiology of the Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, for her development of a new method to infect B-cell cultures with MDV to previously unattained percentages, which allows examining molecular events in detail. The second prize went to Annachiara Greco from the Institute of Virology of the Freie Universitat Berlin. Ms. Greco is working on the mode of operation of telomeric repeats in the genome of MDV, which plays a role in tumor development; viruses with modified telomeric repeats reduce tumor formation in chickens. In addition, a travel award was given to Nicole Bance of the Simon Fraser University in Canada who succeeded in inserting genes for fluorescent proteins into the MDV genome, which not only allows the path of the virus through the cell to be visualized but also permits differentiating the state of the virus as lytic or latent. After Prof. Schat bestowed the awards, Dr. Rahaus emphasized in a brief speech the importance to Lohmann Animal Health of supporting the work of young scientists at the start of their careers. Even though we may consider ourselves to be safely set with our existing vaccines, we must not ignore the danger posed by highly virulent field strains and thus must ensure continuity in the development and manufacturing of new and highly efficacious vaccines. Lohmann Animal Health is proud to have set the standard here and has promised to do so again at the next Marek’s disease meeting in East Lansing, MI, in 2014. Winners of the First Lohmann and K. A. Schat Scientific Award 2012. Left to right: Dr. Rahaus, Nicole Bance, Annachiara Greco, and Julia Schermuly. AVIAN DISEASES 57:331, 2013