Abstract:

With the climate and environment changes，and the immune selective pressure，the animal diseases are tangled in a complicated situation，which involves frequent virus variation，virulence enhancement，increased cross-species infection，as well as coexistence of both the existing and emerging diseases. All these troubles represented the new challenge to animal disease control. Accordingly，National Natural Science Foundation of China established an important program，pathogenesis study of important pathogens in livestock and poultry，to enhance the technique innovation in the disease control and prevention. Professor ZHANG Gai-ping′s project，study on pathogenic mechanism of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus，was funded at last after several rounds of scrutinies，such as open application，peer review，oral defense at meeting for review and argumentation，discussion and vote by exports，examine and approve by the National Natural Science Found Committee meeting.

Key words: pathogens in livestock and poultry, variation, pathogenic mechanism, immune mechanism, important project