A new treatment to protect chickens against infection has been developed in Australia with the aim of phasing out the use of antibiotics in the poultry industry.
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The system, developed by the country’s national science authority CSIRO, provides a way of delivering antibiotic alternatives – natural proteins called cytokines – into chickens, substances that are naturally produced by poultry.
CSIRO researcher Dr John Lowenthal said: “Cytokines improve the immune response during infection and help combat disease. As such, they are excellent naturally-occurring therapeutics.”
“When chickens were treated with cytokines their health improved and as a consequence they gained weight more quickly.”
The researchers administered cytokines into chickens using harmless vaccine strains of viruses called adenoviruses, similar to vaccine strains commonly used in the poultry industry.
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By GlobalDataThe original genes expressing cytokines were obtained from a single, live chicken. The genes were then able to be copied indefinitely for use thereby avoiding the use of further chickens,” a researcher told just-food.com.
