The Novimark project is a 3-year (2015-2018) European research project whose main objective is to identify IHNV and VHSV molecular markers responsible for high and low virulence profiles, in order to develop and validate fast and reliable diagnostic tools for the discrimination between different viral phenotypes.
The application of such tests will allow to obtain important prognostic information on IHNV and VHSV virulence from laboratory data and to adopt the most effective containment measures in the field for each specific case.
A secondary objective of the project is to deepen knowledge on the molecular mechanisms determining the virulence of these pathogens to develop vaccine prototypes based on the use of attenuated strains.