Zoetis Shared New Insights on Marek’s Disease Vaccination at IPPE 2026
During the second day of the IPPE 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia, the exhibition continued to host industry leaders and innovators. Innovation does not only come in processing; it resides in the core of research. Zoetis has always been a leading company in animal health. Therefore, we had the pleasure of talking to Tarsicio Villalobos, Director of Veterinary and Technical Services in Zoetis Global Hatchery Department.
WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW:
What does participating in IPPE represent for Zoetis, and how does this event help strengthen relationships with the poultry industry and share knowledge with sector professionals?
- IPPE is a very important event for us because we have many different customer around the world attending this meeting.
- So, in this particular booth, we were able to receive them from many different countries and have specific conversations about the different topics they are pressing, and discuss possible ways to try to have an idea of how to face those problems in a way that we can support.
There’s been new research about Marek’s disease vaccines. Could you please tell us about the new study?
It is a study that was published in Vaccine journal, entitled “Ability to accelerate innate and cell-mediated immune responses in meat-type chickens by in-ovo vaccination using monovalent and bivalent Marek’s disease vaccines”.
- It’s a paper that was done at the Dr. Isabel Gimeno Laboratory in North Carolina State University by Allison Boone, who was a PhD student in that group.
- And the relevance of this particular study is that it confirmed how in-ovo vaccination, not only is able to protect against Marek’s disease, but also primes the chicken’s immune system for broader challenges, by enhancing both innate and cell-mediated immunity from the day of hatch.
In ovo vaccination has been shown to support early immunity, but this research showed some additional research benefits. Could you please tell us more about them?
One of the first finding was that the different Marek’s disease stereotypes in the vaccine, HBT, CVI and SB1, significantly increase the frequencies of key cells for the immune system when applied in-ovo. And when those types of cells specifically increase, the birds have much more active monocytes and macrophages, which enable the chickens to strongly protect themselves against the early challenge they are going to have when they are placed in the farm.
There has also been a concern about using different Marek’s vaccines together. What did this research show about using multiple Marek’s vaccines together?
- Products that combine CVI and HBT in one vaccine are called bivalent vaccines. So, the question was “are they going to compete with each other and decrease the ability of the chicken to response against the early challenge?”
- The answer in this paper came with the opposite. When the two vaccine are given in-ovo, there is a synergistic effect by significantly enhancing the transcription of antiviral cytokines, which allow the chicken to have antiviral capability from the day of hatch. So rather than it be counteractive, it’s synergistic.