It’s almost time for USPOULTRY to put on its annual show—and research is taking off as the industry fights against highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and other poultry diseases.
IPPE 2023
The 2023 International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE) will be held Jan. 24-26 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, and it has surpassed 525,000 square feet of exhibit space and secured nearly 1,100 exhibitors.
Sponsored by USPOULTRY, the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) and the North American Meat Institute (NAMI), IPPE encompasses three integrated trade shows: the International Poultry Expo, International Feed Expo and International Meat Expo.
These attract industry leaders and decision-makers with the latest innovations in equipment, supplies, and services used in the production and processing of poultry and eggs, meat and animal food products. And this January, the International Poultry Expo will be celebrating 75 years of putting on trade shows!
There will be daily educational programs and workshops led by industry experts, with educational content offered Monday through Friday of IPPE. Kicking off Expo week, the schedule will include the International Poultry Scientific Forum, Latin American Poultry Summit, and the ever-popular Pet Food Conference.
New educational programs also will be available, such as the Foreign Material Prevention & Control Workshop, and we encourage participation in these great learning sessions. There will be several attendee activities and networking opportunities offered, including the Welcome Reception that will be held on the trade show floor at the Georgia World Congress Center, TECHTalks, Research TECHTalks, and the New Product Showcase, as well as the networking lounges on the show floor.
IPPE is about more than the current state of our industries. It is also about the future. Hundreds of students will be participating in the USPOULTRY Foundation College Student Career Program, interviewing for employment and/or internships during the Expo. The Ph.D. and Vet Student Career Fair also will take place. In addition, as part of the USPOULTRY Foundation’s efforts to support recruitment and training of the best and the brightest students and to promote careers in the poultry and egg industry, high school students and agriculture teachers will be in attendance, from the National FFA Poultry Evaluation Career Development and Food Science and Technology Career Development Events, along with the National FFA officer candidates.
Don’t wait, register now at ippexpo.org, and we will see you in Atlanta!
Research TECHTalks at IPPE
Five university researchers will present findings from recently completed research projects funded by USPOULTRY and its Foundation as part of the ever-popular Research TECHTalks at the 2023 IPPE, all free to registered IPPE attendees. If you want to stay abreast of the most recent findings in poultry diseases, food safety, and processing, come to the Research TECHTalks. Below is a description of the completed research projects that will be presented and discussed the morning of Thursday, January 26:
“Methods for Preventing Blackhead Disease in Poultry” Histomoniasis outbreaks in turkeys and broiler breeders can lead to major economic losses for the poultry industry. Reports of histomoniasis outbreaks dramatically increased after the last approved treatment was taken off the market in 2016. There is an urgent need to understand and develop an intervention strategy to alleviate histomoniasis in turkeys and broiler breeders. The objectives of this project were to 1) understand the immune response in turkeys elicited by Histomonas meleagridis, 2) understand the factors and pathways of H. meleagridis lateral transmission in turkeys, and 3) investigate the role of production practices on histomoniasis in broiler breeders.
“Pathogenicity and Genetic Profile of Turkey Hepatitis Reovirus (THRV)” Avian reoviruses (ARVs) are ubiquitous in domestic poultry, with most of them being non-pathogenic. However, ARVs also have been associated with enteritis, hepatitis, neurological disease, myocarditis, respiratory disease, and viral arthritis/tenosynovitis in chickens or turkeys. Clinical disease associated with ARV is mostly dependent on age of the affected host, host immune status, virus pathotype, and route of exposure. Turkey reoviral arthritis is now recognized as a significant cause of lameness in U.S. turkeys, and the associated reovirus is referred to as turkey arthritis reovirus (TARV). In 2019, poults began dying from an acute hepatitis and splenitis, and an ARV, termed “turkey hepatitis reovirus” (THRV), was consistently isolated from liver.
Learning from the experience of TARV, researchers knew it would be important to act quickly to understand the emerging virus so that proper prevention and control measures could be designed to help the turkey industry. Basic questions that needed answers included: What are the characteristics of this virus? Where did it come from? How it is different from the other major reoviruses of poultry? And, whether the reoviruses were widely distributed? This completed research project addressed the following questions: 1) Is this THRV different from TARV and Turkey Enteritis Reovirus (TERV)? 2) Are poults susceptible to oral challenge with THRV? And, 3) do different THRVs differ in pathogenicity?
“Use of Comparative Genomics and In Vitro Screening Approach for the Identification of Vaccine Candidates for Food-Borne Pathogen Campylobacter Jejuni” Interventions to control and reduce the incidence of Campylobacter jejuni colonization in poultry is important to reduce the burden of foodborne illness in humans. Attempts to control this pathogen using antimicrobials have become less effective due to the widespread emergence of resistant strains, and there is a pressing need to develop unconventional intervention strategies. Thus, alternative methods to control C. jejuni has led to a variety of strategies for vaccine development.
Specific objectives for this research study included: 1) predicting the protein-coding regions of isolated Campylobacter strains by analyzing the complete genome sequences; 2) identifying vaccine candidates against C. jejuni via computer simulation; and, 3) evaluating the feasibility of the antigens as vaccine candidates using in vitro screening approach
“Profiling Salmonella Serotypes Through Broiler Processing” Accurate and rapid surveillance of Salmonella is required as a key step in assessing whether mitigation strategies are effective in poultry flocks. The gold standard for Salmonella detection on broiler carcasses is a culture-based protocol that includes several steps and takes multiple days to complete.
Traditional Salmonella isolation at a minimum takes four to five days, and reducing this time may be beneficial. Limitations of the culture-based protocol include the facts that: (1) only the most abundant serotypes are detected, and those in the minority remain “masked,” and (2) selective enrichment introduces bias, and some serovars may outcompete others. Salmonella in live production often exists in mixed serotype populations. These mixed populations are not realized when only one or two colonies are picked off a plate for surveillance, as is done with Salmonella monitoring in pre- and post-harvest poultry.
Therefore, it is a challenge to assess the complexity of serotypes entering the processing plant and, subsequently, which serotypes can persist on a carcass through different processing interventions. The two objectives of this project were to: (1) improve Salmonella surveillance by addressing limitations in conventional culture detection, and, (2) more accurately trace Salmonella serotype populations at a commercial poultry processing plant using CRISPR-SeroSeq.
“Use of Benfotiamine as a Novel Feed Additive to Reduce Incidence of Wooden Breast and White Striping in Commercial Broiler Chickens” Wooden Breast (WB) is a degenerative muscle disease of modern broiler chickens characterized by extreme firmness of the breast muscles, significantly affecting meat quality. Despite the disease prevalence and the fact that chicken producers have expressed immense interest in a timely and economic solution, there are currently no effective approaches to prevent or treat this disease. This project aimed to prevent or diminish deleterious changes in the breast muscle using benfotiamine, a derivative of thiamine with higher bioavailability.
