The objective of this proposal is to continue to offer an established, growing resource for B virus (Cercopithecine herpesvirus 1) to the Comparative Medicine community for rapid diagnostic assays, B virus- free colony monitoring, new isolate acquisition, drug efficacy testing, provision of standardized reagents and controls, and infection control and epidemiologic monitoring in B virus zoonotic outbreaks. This laboratory will utilize over 15 years experience in assisting the biomedical community to identify, control, and prevent B virus infections, using the unique resources and the BSL-4 laboratories, as well as a repository of nearly one half million samples. The resource staff will monitor 23 surviving cases of zoontically infected humans and study invaluable human tissues from 5 recent fatal cases occurring over the past 15 years. This national resource center will continue to provide physicians and medical staff with state-of-the-art support not only to identify, but to monitor therapeutic intervention strategies in current and future cases. The objectives will be accomplished by the following specific aims: 1) Maintain a licensed, trained, emergency-ready staff of experts and a federally licensed BSL-4, registered for Select Agent handling, to perform virological and serological assays during B virus zoonotic outbreaks, 2) design and implement robotics systems to perform testing, 3) Identify recombinant B virus proteins that are immunoreactive with macaque and human sera throughout the duration of B virus infection:. 4) provide resources for isolation and characterization of novel non human primate viruses, and 5) provide education resources to the Comparative Medicine community and public-at-large where macaques are encountered by humans, including provision of rapid, updated information about B virus, zoonotic infections, and SPF colony management strategies. Together, these aims will provide tools to prevent further loss of life from B virus.
