Location: Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory
Project Number: 8042-32000-118-004-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 8, 2026
End Date: Aug 7, 2027
Objective:
The next 4-year research plan will focus on critical knowledge gaps in parasite transmission and pharmaceutical countermeasure development to produce tools for reducing the impact of histomoniasis on the US turkey industry. Specifically, objectives are to 1) Identify immunogenic H. meleagridis proteins to select histomoniasis vaccine candidates; 2) Identify H. meleagridis proteins required for cecal epithelium invasion to inform histomoniasis countermeasure development; and 3) Evaluate countermeasures and management strategies to control and prevent histomoniasis in turkey flocks.
Approach:
Following the withdraw of nitarsone at the end of 2015, poultry farmers have been without FDA approved pharmacological interventions to control or prevent histomoniasis in their flocks. Significant knowledge gaps regarding H. meleagridis transmission and factors contributing to infection and severe pathology must be addressed to enable development of effective countermeasure strategies for mitigating the impact of histomoniasis on US turkey production. To address these gaps, the approach is to 1) utilize reverse vaccinology and immunoinformatics approaches to identify immunogenic targets for development of an effective histomoniasis vaccine; 2) identify virulence factors of the infective form of H. meleagridis contributing to infection and pathology in the turkey to inform development of pharmaceutical interventions; 3) measure the protective efficacy of pharmacological compounds and vaccine candidates against histomoniasis; and 4) evaluate the impact of management strategies on reducing the spread of H. meleagridis between farms and within turkey flocks. US turkey farmers will benefit from this research through development of histomoniasis mitigation strategies and pharmaceutical interventions to limit or prevent losses to their flocks.