Agriculture

Gene editing gives hope for permanent bird flu solution

British scientists believe they are on the way to making chickens resistant to avian influenza (bird flu), ending the need for cullings and vaccinations to curb the disease which has killed millions of birds across the world.

The solution is to edit chicken genes to produce birds with an inbuilt resistance to bird flu, which would be passed on for generation after generation. The scientists say they’re not there yet, but initial results are highly promising.

Their research, published in the journal nature communications has attracted worldwide attention. It was featured in the New York Times, the Guardian in London and in the poultry journal WATTPoultry.

“Gene-editing offers a promising route towards permanent disease resistance, which could be passed down through generations, protecting poultry and reducing the risks to humans and wild birds,” Mike McGrew, the study’s principal investigator, from the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, said in a statement.

His fellow researcher, Wendy Barclay from the Imperial College London, explained

“Although we haven’t yet got the perfect combination of gene edits to take this approach into the field, the results have told us a lot about how influenza virus functions inside the infected cell and how to slow its replication”.

It’s clearly going to take time, with vaccinations shaping up to be the more immediate alternative to mass cullings to curb spread of bird flu.

But a permanent, inbuilt solution, with every chicken resistant from birth to bird flu, must be a poultry producer’s dream.