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Professor Venugopal Nair is the Head of the Avian Viral Diseases programme overseeing the research on avian diseases at the Pirbright Institute. Prof. Nair also heads the Avian Oncogenic virus group & the OIE Reference Laboratory on Marek’s disease. He has a long-standing experience in the field of avian viral diseases. In addition to the position at the Pirbright Institute, Prof. Nair holds positions as Jenner Institute Investigator (Oxford), Visiting Professor of Avian Virology (Zoology, Oxford) Honorary Visiting Professor (Imperial College London), Honorary Professor (University of Liverpool), and Member of the Oxford University Bioscience DTP. In recognition of his overall contribution to Science, he was awarded OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list 2015. Prof. Nair’s group has made major contributions to our understanding of avian viral biology and pathogenesis including reverse genetics for avian viruses and vaccine vectors.

Seminar abstract:
Marek’s Disease Virus (MDV) is a widespread alphaherpesvirus of poultry that causes Marek’s disease (MD) characterised by fatal visceral CD4+ TCRαβ+ T cell tumours at high incidence in susceptible hosts. MD is well-recognised as an excellent model for studying herpesvirus oncogenesis in the natural target avian hosts. The ability for genetic manipulation of cloned viral genomes and the use of new genome editing technologies, and high-throughput analysis of viral and host gene expression have enabled us to gain significant insights into the molecular mechanisms of MDV pathogenesis. Despite significant progress in elucidating the functions of a number of viral genes in pathogenesis and virus replication, there is still a serious dearth of knowledge in the sequence of events that initiates and maintains the latency, and drive transformation. MDV oncoprotein MEQ, other genes such as the RLORF4, viral telomerase RNA (vTR), pp14, RLORF9 and a number of virus-encoded microRNAs have been shown to contribute to the viral pathogenicity. Global changes in the viral/host epigenome and dynamic changes in virus-host gene expression profiles in MD tumour cells are providing further insights into pathogenesis. Vaccines have been in use for over 40 decades controlling the disease. With the current vaccines effective against the disease only, there is evidence of continuing increase in virulence of viruses, suggesting evidence of biological arms race between vaccines and viruses.