The University of Georgia Research Foundation got a $1.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for researchers from The University of Georgia and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop a new technology to breed chickens resistant to Newcastle Virus.

Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Steve Stice, an animal and dairy professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Franklin West, a CAES animal and dairy science assistant professor, Robert Beckstead, a UGA poultry scientist, and Claudio Alfonso, a researcher at the USDA Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga., are the team doing the research.

Newcastle Virus is a contagious bird disease. The team will investigate applying a process called cellular adaptive resistance, which uses stem cells to create disease resistance in animals.

`Disease and death in livestock are serious problems, particularly in underdeveloped countries,” Stice said in a statement. “… We want to provide a new way to create disease-resistant animals using new technologies to combat disease problems. This process will produce animals with natural resistance to specific diseases that will need less veterinary care and will significantly reduce livestock mortalities.”