Vaccine development for Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea

Project Team: Qiang Liu, Volker Gerdts 

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is an alphacoronavirus of pigs first isolated in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. The disease spread to many parts of Europe and Asia and, in 2013, emerged in North America where it killed millions of pigs. PEDV is highly infectious and survives well in the environment. This makes it difficult to control though biosecurity and management practices.

We have developed a novel prototype vaccine and are currently developing a next-generation vaccine. Due to the nature of the virus, PEDV variants continue to emerge and cause outbreaks in Canada and the USA. Our team is working on vaccines that will be effective against multiple PEDV strains, and that will allow us to distinguish between animals that have been infected and those that have been vaccinated (DIVA vaccines).

Learn more: Protecting Against Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus