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Kistler discovered that some asymptomatic birds test positive for the virus. Does that mean they're carriers, spreading the infection? And is ABV like HIV, infecting the host for a long period before causing symptoms? How accurate is the PCR test that Kistler produced? Can a vaccine be developed?
Already, the veterinary research community is jumping in, with teams in Canada and Germany also finding ABV in dead parrots. Any company can now license the technology that UCSF patented and commercialize a PCR diagnostic test. An accurate test could help eradicate PDD by identifying birds that need to be quarantined.
Ganem and DeRisi plan to back off PDD to focus on their work on achalasia and other human diseases. Ganem wants to know if a virus like ABV triggers achalasia, the human disease eerily similar to PDD. To that end, he has obtained esophagus biopsies from 10 patients, which he has begun scanning for viruses.
Kistler, though, might just make a career of it. She's looking for a faculty position at a university with a strong veterinary research program. “I'm going to work on it for a while,” she says. “There are a lot of interesting questions left unanswered.” 
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With the cause of a deadly viral disease in hand, HHMI researchers at UCSF and colleagues have a chance to save a bird that exists only in captivity.
On a lush island of vegetation in Qatar's desert lies an ark of sorts, Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation. Owned by a member of Qatar's royal family, the park shelters 2,000 animals from 100 rare species—including 50 Spix's macaws, the rarest bird in the world. The last wild Spix's, spotted in Brazil in 2000, is presumed dead.
Veterinarians at Al Wabra breed the powder blue birds, and in 2008 the compound's owner bought a tract of land in Brazil with plans to reintroduce the Spix's there. But proventricular dilatation disease (PDD) is stalling his plans. Veterinarian Susan Clubb, a PDD expert, flew to Qatar and found the disease in several birds (she won't say how many). Ganem and DeRisi's research into the viral cause of PDD might just save the species. After months of red tape wrangling, DeRisi won approval to import samples from the Spix's. He plans to run them through a battery of tests to search for signs of avian bornavirus. If the tests identify birds carrying the disease, the animals can be quarantined, reducing the risk to their flock-mates. “This is a case where finding PDD could make a difference in whether a species survives,” Clubb says.
—B.V.
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