Laboratory of Molecular Virology

Over the past few years, the Russian Federation has faced the need to ensure technological sovereignty and food security. The reduction in the supply of vaccines necessary for agriculture, as well as diagnostic test systems necessary to detect and prevent the spread of viral diseases of farm animals, necessitates their early import substitution. Despite significant advances in agriculture, the issues of preserving the health of livestock and preventing the introduction of dangerous viral pathogens into the population remain relevant. In this regard, the work aimed at studying viral pathogens of farm animals is of paramount importance. The analysis of information in scientific literature and other sources will make it possible to identify viral diseases that pose the greatest threat to animal husbandry. In addition, this will make it possible to determine the optimal molecular genetic techniques that can be used to conduct monitoring studies among livestock. The improvement of existing methods and the introduction of new methods for detecting the genome of viral pathogens in samples from farm animals will improve their diagnostic characteristics, as well as significantly reduce the time for diagnosis, which will increase the effectiveness of monitoring studies. For further study of the identified viral pathogens, it is necessary to isolate them on the appropriate cell line. To this end, it is necessary to study the permissivity of various cell cultures available in the collection of the Federal State Budgetary Budgetary Institution FITSVIM. Selecting the optimal cell line and optimizing the cultivation conditions will not only allow the viral pathogen to be accumulated in sufficient quantities for further research, but also deposited in the State Collection of Microorganisms of the Federal State Budgetary Budgetary Institution of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. In the future, the isolated virus strain can be further studied for its certification, and can also be used for various purposes, such as assessing the intensity of immunity during vaccination, as a standard sample for validating diagnostic techniques, etc. The molecular and genetic characteristics of viral pathogen strains will make it possible to establish their belonging to a particular genogroup, as well as to establish phylogenetic relationships between other virus strains, both isolated in the Russian Federation and abroad. Knowledge of the molecular and genetic characteristics of circulating virus strains will optimize the methods used to detect them. In addition, this information can be used for molecular epizootological analysis, which makes it possible to determine the ways in which outbreaks of viral diseases of animals occur and spread. Thus, the tasks set are aimed at studying the molecular and genetic characteristics of actual viral pathogens of farm animals and improving molecular and genetic techniques for their detection.