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Date: June 9, 2003
Posted by: Sheila Reilly (SheilaReilly@bac.edu)

Previous postings in this Thread were distributed April 23, 24 and 25, 2003:

Dear Dr. Lemire,

I am a volunteer rehabilitator at Carolina Raptor Center outside 
Charlotte, NC and I also am a molecular biologist (I teach at Belmont 
Abbey College also outside of Charlotte).  I am interested in your 
interest in testing dead birds for WNV.  I tested brain homogenates 
from two barred owls that came into rehab at Carolina Raptor Center 
that had some of the symptoms of a possible West Nile infection but 
my results were inconclusive/negative.  I'm using the Titan One-Tube 
RT-PCR kit (Roche Biomedical) with RNAse treatment for the 
amplification.  My primers were WN233 and WN640c from the NY99 strain 
(Lanciotti et al. 2000).  I am also testing serum taken from our 
resident birds (all of whom are getting their second round of 
vaccinations soon). We were interested to see if any had signs of 
previous infection. Unfortunately I am not set up to do ELISA for 
antibodies (no antigen, no microtiter reader), which would be the 
best way to go for our resident birds.

Anyway, our center has a couple of more raptors in the freezer that 
need to be tested and I have the other brain homogenates sitting at 
-750C. Would you be interested in looking at them?  If so, I'm sure I 
could get them shipped to you packed in dry ice.

I will be out of town from June 12-June 19 (Grading AP Biology 
exams) but I will be here until the 11th and then on the 20th.

Thanks for your time.

Regards,
Sheila Reilly

-----Original Message-----

Subject: [WNV-L] Testing Services for Birds (3)
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003
From: "LEMIRE, TANYA" <TANYA_LEMIRE@SDSTATE.EDU>

I'm not familiar with possible ante mortem tests but our lab offers 
immunohistochemistry for WN on post mortem avian tissue samples.  (I 
can't help but think of the dead ones-I'm a pathologist!)  I would be
interested in collaborating with anyone that would like to submit samples for
testing and possible publication of the results.

Tanya D. Lemire, DVM, Diplomate ACVP
Animal Disease Research & Diagnostic Laboratory
South Dakota State University
Veterinary Science Department
Box 2175, North Campus Drive
Brookings, South Dakota  57007-1396

(605) 688-5643 (office)
(605) 688-6003 (fax)

http://ihc.sdstate.org 

"A society that will trade a little freedom for a little security
will lose both and deserves neither." --Thomas Jefferson.

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