2.Functional genomics to understand host-pathogen interactions
- There is a critical need to develop animal disease models that mimic
field infections using statistically significant numbers of animals
per group and standardized challenge inocula. Also critical is the
need to share challenge inoculums from a single source to reduce
experimental variations.
- There is a lack of livestock and poultry breeds with well
characterized genotypes and disease phenotypes whose variations can be
correlated with innate and acquired immune status of the host.
- Animal health research laboratories lack bioinformatics infrastructure
computer hardware, software, and trained scientists in computational
biology. There is also a lack of animal and pathogen species-specific
genomics and proteomic tools with well-annotated genome databases to
predict key immunogenic epitopes in the context of different target
species to understand the triggering mechanisms of the protective
immune response and to evaluate vaccine-induced immunity for the
animal health research community.
- There is a need to identify molecular pathways of host and pathogens
that are involved in transmission, survival, virulence, innate and
adaptive immune responses, and protective immune response to natural
infection and vaccination. The ultimate goal is the need to identify
the ’operational limits ’in the genomic ’imbalance’ associated with
current genetic selection.
- There is a need to develop a full set of specific research reagents
for the key gene products involved in immune functions.
- It is paramount that the animal health research community has access
to measurable biomarkers linked to disease susceptibility, disease
resistance, and mechanisms of protective immunity.