Cornell-led team receives $2.5 million to study house finch eye disease that could provide clues to avian flu and AIDS

11-Oct-2006

Cornell researchers leading a multi-institutional team studying an eye disease infecting house finches have received a five-year $2.5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) award to continue their work.

The bacterium Mycoplasma gallisepticum jumped species from chickens to house finches in 1994. Though the pathogen (called a mycoplasma because it is among a group of small, parasitic bacteria that cause diseases) causes a nonfatal respiratory infection in chickens and poses no threat to humans, it causes severe conjunctivitis in house finches, making them less mobile and easier to prey upon. The disease rapidly spread throughout the house finch's eastern range and, more recently, has established itself in the West.

Because the disease bears similarities with avian influenza and AIDS - in that all involve transmission via direct contact, a highly mobile host and zoonosis (where the pathogen jumps species) - the researchers hope these mycoplasma studies shed light on how other diseases spread.

The award follows an earlier grant of almost $2.5 million for research on house finches and M. gallisepticum, headed by André Dhondt, the Edwin H. Morgens Professor of Ornithology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and director of Bird Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The grants are from the "Ecology of Infectious Diseases Program," a joint NSF, National Institutes of Health and U.S. Geological Survey program designed to study ecology and infectious diseases.

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/58546/cornell-led-team-receives-2-5-million-to-study-house-finch-eye-disease-that-could-provide-clues-to-avian-flu-and-aids.html