Respiratory syncytial virus, also known as RSV, is a respiratory virus that infects the lungs and breathing passages, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Every person in the world gets this virus.

The virus manifests cold-like symptoms for most people, but it can cause severe pneumonia in infants, especially babies born premature, and in the elderly, said Dr. Mark Ackermann, professor in veterinarian pathology and acting chairman of veterinary clinic science department.

Ackermann is using lambs to research possible human treatments for the virus. He developed an interest in researching animal models of human diseases because his father was a pharmacist.

“It does two things. It helps a little bit with animals and it helps with human disease conditions,” Ackermann said.

Research of this kind has been done before on mice and rats, but Ackermann has found that lambs are an improved model for research.

Lambs and cattle naturally contract a strain of the virus that is similar to the human virus. Lambs are also susceptible to the human virus, and Ackermann said they use the human virus in lambs to conduct their research.

“We are trying to learn how this virus causes a disease, and then we test therapies,” Ackermann said.

Ackermann’s research has included testing some of his own therapies, as well as therapies developed by pharmaceutical companies.

Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a part of Johnson and Johnson, and Ablynx, have given their therapies to Ackermann’s team in an effort to test on the lambs so that they can use the therapies on humans.

“RSV affects the lungs, and the anatomy of the lung of a lamb is similar to the lung of a human infant,” said Alejandro Larios-Mora, a graduate student working on research in this area.

Similar characteristics make it easier to test working therapies on the lambs beforehand.

Ackermann said researchers can utilize similar therapies with lambs as they can with human infants, such as nebulizers and using scopes to see what is happening in the infected lungs.

Larios-Mora said that the therapies they have tested from pharmaceuticals include an aerosol drug distributed through a mask, as well as an oral drug. Both have been successful. 

This research can also be done on pre-term lambs, which are born before full gestation. Rats or mice that are born before full gestation usually die, but pre-term lambs resemble premature human babies, which makes studying the virus in the lambs helpful with studies of infected human babies.

There is currently no vaccine for the virus. A vaccine developed in the 1960s actually made the virus worse. Currently only one therapy for the virus is available, but it is extremely expensive, and it does not work 100 percent of the time, said Ackermann.

There is a need for vaccines of therapies, because the virus disposes humans to asthma and they can get re-infected, Ackermann said.

To decide the next step in their research, Ackermann and his team will wait to see what grants they get approved to research.