PDD Breakthrough

[jmfleish]

Schubot Center Announces PDD Breakthrough

Dr. Ian Tizard of Texas A&M's Schubot Exotic Bird Health Center announced on 19 May 2008 that they have made a breakthrough in development of a diagnostic test for Proventricular Dilatation Disease, PDD. Dr Tizard reports they have developed a serologic test that seems to be absolutely specific for PDD (no false positives), although it is not yet fully sensitive (three false negatives out of about 20 biopsy-confirmed positives). Further work remains to identify exactly what the causative organism is and to improve the test's sensitivity, but these results are still a tremendous breakthrough in the battle against this horrendous disease. The American Federation of Aviculture is proud to be one of the supporters of this PDD research at Texas A&M through its Avian Research Grants Program and invite all bird lovers to help the Schubot Center continue this work by donating to AFA's 2008 Avian Research Grants Program. Tax deductible donations may be made online at http://www.afabirds .org/2008AvianRe searchGrants. shtml

Donations may also be made by check to "AFA Avian Research Grants Program" and mailed to American Federation of Aviculture, Inc.
P.O. Box 91717
Austin TX 78709-1717

AFA is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization and all donations are tax deducible to the full extent of the law.

[bullibirdshow]

Wow that is amazing!

Great news!

Thanks for that Jen.

Were there any hints on what the causative organism might be?

Do you have any links for further reading?

Cheers,

Bulli

[jmfleish]

The information was given to me by my Eclectus breeder. She hinted about a month ago that there was going to be a huge breakthrough and that it wasn't going to be coming out of U of Georgia and that it involved Dr. Susan Clubb but didn't want to say anything else officially. I'll see if I can pry any more info out of her and share what I can.

I think they're still baffled by the organism and have heard that they think it might be a prion. Some think that it might be some kind of hardwiring that is in genetically in the bird from hatch and something environmental sets it off. It's hard to tell because it's been so elusive. I'll share more info as I hear it.

[vilnukoy]

thanks for sharing. but unfortunatly to late for my little munchkin

[Lisa B]

yes, thank you very much for sharing!
we are all learning daily...and things we thought, change with science and avian medicine all the time.

[Valo's Moirana]

interesting - thanks for sharing