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The Biggs Avian Research Building

The Biggs Avian Research Building is a stand-alone poultry experimental facility designated to support the scientific need for low containment poultry studies.

Appropriate poultry housing conditions (isolators and raised floor pens) are used to ensure the welfare of both animals and staff is maintained; while conducting experiments on economically significantly important poultry pathogens such as Marek’s disease and avian influenza.

Opened in February 2023, the Biggs Building relocates facilities previously available at the Institute’s former site (Compton) on to the Pirbright campus.

The building is named in recognition of the eminent poultry scientist, Professor Peter Biggs, who worked at the Houghton Grange site in Cambridgeshire and which subsequently became part of the Institute for Animal Health. Professor Biggs was the first to isolate a herpesvirus, the causative agent of Marek’s disease, and was awarded a CBE in 1987.

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