Human infections have mostly been relatively mild, “and that’s because this H5N1 virus doesn’t bind well to human cells,” says Scott Hensley, a professor of microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine. “The problem is flu viruses change all the time, and we know that the virus is only one or two mutations away from being able to latch onto human cells much more effectively.”
Hensley says he doesn’t know if or when this virus would cause a pandemic, “but the worst thing we can do is be flat-footed and unprepared, because this virus does represent a true pandemic risk, with a potential to cause an incredible amount of disease.”
He and Drew Weissman, Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at Penn Medicine and a Nobel Prize winner, have developed a vaccine against the virus, using the same mRNA technology as the COVID vaccines, while School of Veterinary Medicine faculty and students are researching transmission dynamics and assisting the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Pennsylvania Game Commission with disease surveillance.
Hensley and Weissman published a study last May showing their vaccine elicited a strong response in mice and ferrets. They are now testing their vaccine in chickens and dairy cattle with Penn Vet’s Gary Althouse, professor of reproduction and swine health, at New Bolton Center in Kennett Square. “If we can reduce the amount of virus in birds and cattle, we’re ultimately reducing the chance that this virus has of infecting humans,” Hensley says.
“At Penn, we really pride ourselves on interdisciplinary teaching, research, and practice, and all of those are on display right now with Penn’s role in supporting the state’s response to avian influenza,” says Michael Smith, senior director of commonwealth relations for Penn. “That’s in keeping with our strategic framework, In Principle and Practice. This is a clear demonstration of Penn’s commitment to being an anchored, interwoven, engaged institution that is creating and deploying inventive solutions to real public problems.”
In addition to working on vaccine development, Penn is a partner in the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System (PADLS), along with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Pennsylvania State University. The PADLS lab at New Bolton Center has tested more than 20,000 samples from domestic birds, wild birds, and wild mammals since the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak began in the United States, says Penn Vet assistant pathobiology professor Eman Anis, section head of molecular diagnostics and avian serology at the lab.
Following earlier detections of the virus in dairy cattle in other parts of the U.S., the lab began running tests on milk samples from Pennsylvania, she says. And in response to the recent deaths of snow geese in Lehigh County from bird flu, the lab has collaborated with Penn Vet’s Wildlife Futures Program to prioritize timely testing of wild bird samples. New Bolton Center’s lab performed the testing that identified infections among a 50,000-bird commercial chicken flock in Lehigh County.
“The implications of this outbreak extend beyond animal health,” Anis says. “The economic impact of this virus on the poultry and dairy industries is particularly concerning. This virus has been circulating in the U.S. for over three years, leading to the culling of millions of birds. Also, the disease has been associated with decreased milk production in infected dairy cattle.”
Lt. Governor Austin Davis, right, recently visited the lab of Scott Hensley, center, to meet with University of Pennsylvania faculty and researchers studying viral infections.
(Image: Eric Sucar)
Anna Jaeger, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Penn Vet assistant pathobiology professor Louise Moncla, says she has collaborated with Anis’ group to sequence HPAI samples from wild and commercial birds in Pennsylvania, to investigate evolutionary and transmission dynamics within and between hosts. She also put together a public-facing, interactive visualization on transmission dynamics for the open-source project Nextstrain.
Lambo Damodaran, another postdoc in the Moncla Lab, says he, along with Moncla and Jaeger, has sought to understand how HPAI has spread in North America so rapidly and infected domestic birds so frequently, using genetic sequences of viruses collected from wild and domestic birds.
Kevin Niedringhaus, assistant professor of wildlife pathology at Penn Vet, led a recent study showing that “for wildlife in Pennsylvania, red foxes appear to be the non-bird species most likely to be infected and develop severe disease,” he explains. The paper was published in December in the journal Animals. Niedringhaus adds that people can report sick or dead wildlife to the Pennsylvania Game Commission at 833-742-9453 for potential investigation.
Niedringhaus says in addition to testing animals and studying how HPAI affects them individually, his program plans to investigate the role of the virus in the health of other wildlife species in Pennsylvania at the population level.
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