Dr R S Sethi from School of Animal Biotechnology earned Research project from Indian Council of Medical Research

Ludhiana-19-Oct, 2012



The poultry industry witnessed remarkable growth from backyard to poultry industry since last 4 decades. About 3 million farmers and 15 million agrarian farmers are employed in the poultry industry. Workers in poultry farms are exposed to significant levels of harmful contents of poultry farm air. Hence, poultry workers suffer from work-related lower and upper respiratory symptoms such as chronic cough, allergic and non-allergic rhinitis, organic dust toxic syndrome, chronic bronchitis, hypersensitivity pneumonitis (Farmer\'s Lung), toxin fever and occupational asthma or asthma-like syndrome. However, the mechanisms of lung injury following exposure to poultry farm air remain poorly understood.

Keeping in view incomplete understanding of complex patho-physiology of lung injury after exposure to poultry air, School of Animal Biotechnology initiated research on this core issue. A research project from Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi has been sanctioned to Dr R S Sethi, Associate Professor, School of Animal Biotechnology, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana . Dr Sethi informed that the research project entitled "Effect of Single and Multiple Exposures to Poultry Farm Air on Pulmonary Defense of poultry workers-A Murine Model" has been sanctioned by ICMR. Dr Sethi further elaborated that the approved project will focus on characterization of airways epithelium of mice to estimate the pulmonary immune response after such exposures.

Dr R S Sethi is also serving as Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. He worked on the characterization of lung inflammation in TLR9 knock out mice. Dr Gurvinder Singh Brah, Director, School of Animal Biotechnology congratulated Dr Sethi and his team for bringing laurel to the Institute and informed that the proposed study may help in effective prevention and treatment of respiratory problems of poultry farmers. Dr Brah mentioned that School of Animal Biotechnology is the latest unit of GADVASU, however the school boosts to have a state of the art research and teaching facility, earned a number of competitive grants and zeal to grow further.


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