11/4/2024: 

Assistant professor Marina Meester is one of the three winners of the 2024 European PRRS Research Award. This award is presented annually for three European research proposals that make innovative contributions to controlling the PRRS virus. Each winner receives a grant of 25,000 euros for project implementation, funded by Boehringer Ingelheim.

PRRS is a disease caused by the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSv). This virus leads to reproductive failure and pneumoniain pigs. That has a big impact on the welfare of the animals, and results in significant economic impacts on the global swine industry.

Marina Meester is delighted to receive the award: “This European PRRS Research Award enables us, together with Royal GD, to refine the interpretation of sequence data and provide pig farmers with guidance on improving internal biosecurity, external biosecurity, or their vaccination strategy.” Meester’s research proposal is titled IMPACT: Introduction or Mutations of PRRSv? – Advice for Control using advanced geneTic analyses.

"In the current situation, controlling PRRSv is hindered by the high genetic variability of the virus”, explains Meester. “The dominant PRRSv strain on a farm can change due to mutations, recombination with other field or vaccine-like strains, or the introduction of a new strain. This makes interpreting PRRSv sequence data complex, yet pig farmers increasingly rely on sequence analyses to understand PRRSv dynamics and adjust their management accordingly.”

In this study Meester will apply advanced genetic methods to differentiate between mutations of circulating PRRSv strains and newly introduced or vaccine-like strains. “By utilizing the virus's evolutionary rate, we further aim to determine when new strains were introduced into farms and align this with changes in biosecurity and vaccination protocols on farms. This allows us to make an IMPACT for the health of pigs in the Netherlands and beyond.”

More information on PRRS