McCauley group
Avian influenza viruses
The pandemic threat of the H5N1 bird flu viruses highlights the need to understand what factors limit the spread of influenza viruses between species. The work carried out in the group is designed to address these factors. Our recent work, done in collaboration with Dr. Wendy Barclay (University of Reading) and Prof. Steve Goodbourn (St. George's University, of London) has shown that the induction of interferon in human cells by avian influenza viruses may be a factor in controlling the efficiency of virus infection and work continues to further investigate this.
Experiments are also underway to study the dynamics, selection and pathogenicity of avian influenza viruses in collaboration with the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Weybridge, the Institute for Animal Health and the University of Cambridge. Deep amplicon sequencing is being used to unravel the selection of viruses as infection proceeds within an individual animal and as the virus spreads between animals.