Profile

My main research interest is the chicken immune system with special focus on the specific immune response to viral infections including presentation of foreign antigens by MHC molecules. The work is focused on immunogenetical analyses of MHC-related disease resistance, especially identification of DNA polymorphisms and mRNA expression differences in selected candidate genes. This is done to obtain a better  understanding of genetic resistance towards economically important poultry diseases and to develop molecular biology methods for possible use in selective breeding programmes. Apart from this, work is also focused on analyses of vaccination responses in MHC-inbred chicken lines, partly to develop new flow cytometry-based methods for analysis of specific cellular immunity and partly to define parameters that correlate with protective immunity. Finally work is being done regarding chicken innate immunity and especially the acute phase protein mannan binding lectin (MBL).