THE 14TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON MAREK’S DISEASE AND AVIAN HERPESVIRUSES, St. LOUIS, MO, JULY 12-14, 2024

The 14th International Symposium on Marek’s Disease and Avian Herpesviruses (MDAH) was highly successful attracting 162 scientists representing 25 countries and 5 continents. One hundred-and-six participated in both the AAAP Annual Meeting and the MDAH Symposium including 50 non-AAAP members. It was a great opportunity to see old friends in person, many of whom were not seen since Covid stopped in-person meetings, as well as to make many new friends.

Dr. Clinton Jones presented the first keynote lecture entitled “The intimate relationship between stress and neurotropic herpesvirus” and detailed the key role of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and pioneering transcription factors of the Krüppel-like factor (KLF) family in the initiation of BHV1 reactivation from latency. Dr. Gisela Erf presented the second keynote on autoimmune vitiligo in the Smyth-line chicken – the contribution of environmental factors and MD vaccination status as inducers, as well as mechanistic insight into disease progression. She also presented on the use of feather pulp in vivo as a microcosm of the chicken immune system.  Both keynote lectures provided unique and important insight into fundamental herpesvirology and avian immunology, respectively. In addition to these two lectures, the program consisted of 5 “State-of-the Art” lectures, 41 regular presentations, and 27 posters. PhD students and postdoctoral fellows presented the majority of the papers and posters, while competing for the Ton Schat – Boehringer Ingelheim awards. Emma Armstrong, Joe Patria and Matthew Smallridge received the first, second and third place awards, respectively, in the graduate student oral presentation category. For the postdoctoral researcher oral presentation awards, the first price went to Ayumi Matsuyama, while the second and third price went to Sonsiray Alvarez-Narvaez, and Yaoyao Zhang, respectively. Finally, the three poster awards went to Deborah Velez-Irizarry, Sareeta Bagri, and Lei He.  A panel discussion on career development was included for the benefit of the many students and postdocs in attendance.

One of the absolute highlights of the meeting was the short presentation during the banquet by Dr. Dick Witter on the early history of the HVT vaccine, which led to a standing ovation for Dr. Witter. After Dick went back to his seat at the table, to his surprise he was asked to come back to the stage to receive an achievement award for his many years of research on Marek’s disease and other avian tumors. The presentation of the award was followed by another standing ovation and many of the participants took the opportunity to get photos with Dick.

The 15th International Symposium on Marek’s Disease and Avian Herpesviruses will be held in Namur Belgium starting on the evening of June 29, 2026 with the welcome reception and ending on July 2, 2026 after the lunch. Dr. Benoît Muylkens (email: [email protected]) will be organizing the meeting. In addition, Dr. Murata is planning to host the 16th International Symposium on Marek’s Disease and Avian Herpesviruses in 2028 in Sapporo, Japan.

Finally, we want to thank our many sponsors for their financial support and Bob Bevans-Kerr, Lily Peterson, Nathan Bevans-Kerr, and Lauren Willins of the AAAP office for providing logistic support. 

John Dunn, Maricarmen Garcia, Mark Parcells and Ton Schat of the National Organizing Committee