The relaunch brings a new visual identity in MSU maroon and gold, a data-driven People page, our full publication record, and this news feed — where we’ll share papers, awards, and lab milestones.

The site remains open source on GitHub. If something looks off or is hard to use, tell us — accessibility feedback is always welcome.

In its announcement, PSA highlighted the lab’s research program in agricultural microbiomics — combining microbial genomics, rapid diagnostics, microbiome science, and animal models to improve poultry health and food safety from farm to fork, with an emphasis on avian pathogenic E. coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Clostridium perfringens. The citation also noted more than $3.2 million in research funding as PI and co-PI, over 60 peer-reviewed publications, service as a Section Editor for Poultry Science, and the mentoring of 14 graduate students and 6 postdoctoral researchers.

An award like this belongs to everyone who has worked in the lab. Thank you to our students and postdocs, past and present, and to our collaborators at Mississippi State, USDA ARS, and across the poultry industry.

Wang, M., Ye, X., Hsu, C.Y., Fugate, H., Zhang, X., Adhikari, P.A., Fan, P., Elliott, K., Macklin, K., & Zhang, L. (2026). Application of culturomics to explore the cultivable microbiota and enable targeted bacterial isolation from the ceca of broiler chickens. Poultry Science, 105(4), 106527. DOI

The work systematically cultures the broiler cecal microbiome — turning “unculturable” community members into isolates we can actually study and deploy. It is a key step toward identifying probiotic candidates that improve poultry health and reduce pathogen colonization.

Sunita Shrestha won the Best Oral Presentation Award in the SCAD category for her work on vaccine candidate identification against avian pathogens using reverse vaccinology.

Manhong Wang received a Certificate of Excellence in Pathology and an IPSF Travel Award for his culturomics research on the broiler cecal microbiome.

Congratulations to both — this is what a strong year looks like.

Jia, L., Ye, X., Arick, M.A., Hsu, C.Y., Evans, J.D., Robinson, K., Adhikari, P., & Zhang, L. (2025). Reverse vaccinology and host-pathogen analysis reveal pagP as a potential universal vaccine candidate against avian pathogenic Escherichia coli in poultry. Journal of Applied Microbiology, 136(10), lxaf253. DOI

The vaccine-development program behind this work was featured by MAFES Discovers in “Fowl Play: MSU Scientists Develop Chicken Vaccine to Combat Bacteria”.

The work drew media attention this spring:

• Billion-Dollar Bacteria Breakthrough — MAFES Discovers
• AMI Members Develop Rapid Test for Bacterium That Costs Poultry Industry Billions Globally — The Microbiologist

The underlying research on assay optimization and DNA extraction methods is published in the Journal of Applied Poultry Research (2024, 2025).