Researchers Aim to Deactivate Airborne Bird Flu Virus

University of Michigan and University of Bristol team up on $2M USDA grant to study virus decay and plasma technology

Mar. 28, 2026 at 5:38am

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A $2 million grant from the USDA will fund research at the University of Michigan and University of Bristol on how quickly the virus that causes bird flu loses its infectivity in the air, and what technologies like nonthermal plasma can effectively reduce the virus's infectivity in enclosed livestock environments. The goal is to provide the agricultural industry with science-based guidelines for operating under the threat of bird flu outbreaks.

Why it matters

Detection of bird flu infection within flocks and herds leads to the mass culling of animals, which disrupts food supply chains. The ongoing outbreak of HPAI H5N1 that began in 2022 in the U.S. has led to the loss of 175 million birds and, as of late 2024, has cost the industry roughly $1.4 billion. Understanding how the virus degrades in the air and developing effective deactivation technologies could help prevent or mitigate future outbreaks.

The details

The research team, led by University of Michigan associate professor Herek Clack, will test how nonthermal plasma can render aerosols containing the bird flu virus incapable of infecting humans and livestock. Nonthermal plasma essentially exposes air to strong electric fields, temporarily creating free electrical charges that damage viruses and render them harmless. The team will also explore how air pollutants common in livestock environments, such as ammonia, may impact the effectiveness of the plasma treatment.

  • The $2 million USDA grant was awarded in March 2026.
  • The ongoing HPAI H5N1 outbreak began in the U.S. in 2022.

The players

Herek Clack

Associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Michigan, leading the research project.

Allen Haddrell

Research fellow at the University of Bristol in the U.K., employing a new technology to measure how quickly the bird flu virus loses infectivity in the air.

USDA

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which is funding the $2 million grant for this research.

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What they’re saying

“Both the USDA and the agricultural industry want a playbook-science-based guidelines-for how to operate under the threat of bird flu.”

— Herek Clack, Associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, University of Michigan

“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.”

— Herek Clack, Associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, University of Michigan

“What they miss with that approach is roughly the first 20 minutes of the infectivity decay. Consequently, they can get wildly different results. Different research groups can look at the same virus and come to different conclusions.”

— Allen Haddrell, Research fellow, University of Bristol

What’s next

The research team will continue testing the effectiveness of nonthermal plasma in deactivating the bird flu virus in air samples with various pollutants, as well as refining the methods for precisely measuring the virus's infectivity decay rate.

The takeaway

This research could provide the agricultural industry with critical science-based guidelines and technologies to better protect livestock, workers, and the food supply from future bird flu outbreaks, which have become increasingly disruptive and costly.