Respiratory Therapy University of Michigan researchers are leading a project to discover how the bird flu virus degrades in the air and how engineering solutions can mitigate its spread.
The $2 million grant from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service aims to answer fundamental questions about how long the virus remains infectious in the air and how it can be neutralized. The ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1, which began in 2022, has led to the loss of 175 million birds and cost the industry approximately $1.4 billion as of late 2024.
Herek Clack, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, will lead the project to test how nonthermal plasmas can render aerosols containing the virus incapable of infecting humans and livestock. The approach involves exposing air to strong electric fields, which creates free electrical charges that damage viruses and render them harmless.
“Both the USDA and the agricultural industry want a playbook—science-based guidelines—for how to operate under the threat of bird flu,” said Clack, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, in a news release. “We’re after a better understanding of how the airborne virus behaves in enclosed livestock operations and what technologies can best protect animals and workers.”