USDA honors FLC awardee for career achievements in poultry science

Hyun Lillehoj, a early winner of FLC's Excellence in Technology Transfer award, is one of four researchers recognized for their career achievements by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) as part of Women's History Month.

Lillehoj, a molecular biologist at the ARS Animal Biosciences and Biotechnology Laboratory, is one of the world's leaders in the field of avian immunology, conducting research that has advanced the understanding of immunological responses in poultry to the pathogens Eimeria and Clostridium, which cost the U.S. poultry industry a combined $10 billion in losses annually. Her research also focuses on developing alternatives to antibiotic use—integrating nutrition, health, and disease research—to protect commercial chickens from important avian diseases.

Lillehoj has been working with colleagues in the agency and around the world to find ways of strengthening the poultry immune system with dietary supplements. She was one of several researchers to collaborate on the first study that assessed the use of green tea to improve poultry health. In another study, Lillehoj evaluated the effects of adding commercial probiotics to poultry diets to benefit their immune system.

In 1999, as a member of the Immunology and Disease Resistance Laboratory within the Livestock and Poultry Sciences Institue, Lillihoj was awarded an FLC Excellence in Technology Transfer award for her work on developing and transferring immunological reagents and coccidial vaccine delivery technologies.

In 2014, Lillehoj was inducted into the ARS Hall of Fame, and in 2015 she was honored at the 14th annual Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals awards in Washington, D.C. where she was presented with a Career Achievement Medal for her groundbreaking scientific discoveries for strategies to improve poultry health.

The other women recognized this month by the ARS are chemist Soheila Maleki, food technologist Tara McHugh, and chemist Allene Jeanes. Read more: https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/03/24/women-making-difference-world...