Project Number: 1940-32000-057-08
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jul 01, 2009
End Date: Dec 31, 2013

Objective:
To improve Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus (FMDV) vaccine potency and duration of immunity, ARS, PIADC and the University of Vermont (UV) will study the cellular immune response to infection and the ability to refine the killed virus vaccine for FMDV or the recombinant empty capsid vaccine. The objective of this agreement is to analyze T cell responses to FMDV infection in swine and cattle.

Approach:
ARS, PIADC in cooperation with the University of Copenhagen is developing state of the art technology for analysis of FMDV vaccine performance in cattle. The product of this collaboration, MHC tetramers for tracking T cell responses to vaccination, will be used to analyze genetically defined cattle. The University of Vermont collaborators maintain a genetically homogenous herd of Holstein cattle that make it possible to use the tetramer technology to analyze the response to vaccination with FMDV new vaccines. ARS, PIADC will collaborate with UV faculty to analyze responses to infection of these cattle with FMDV and mastitis.