The whole group had its annual meeting on June 1st and 2nd, 2017, at South China Agricultural University in China. Attendees included investigators from the University of Arkansas-UA (Drs. John English, Yanbin Li, John Marcy, Dustan Clark, John Kent, Ed Pohl, Chase Rainwater and Ronghui Wang), South China Agriculture University-SCAU (Drs. Ming Liao, Jianmin Zhang and Ms. Xiaoyun Qu), China Agriculture University-CAU (Dr. Jianhan Lin and Miss. Xinge Xi), Zhejiang University-ZJU (Drs. Jianping Wang and Yingchun Fu), Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences-ZAAS (Dr. Wen Wang), and industry representatives from Jiangfeng poultry company (Mr. Xianjun Zeng) and New Hope Liuhe poultry company (Mr. Longhai Liu). Prof. Ming Liao of SCAU and Prof. Yanbin Li of UA co-chaired the meeting. During the meeting, investigators in each subgroup gave a half hour presentation on the progress reports for the first and second quarters and a brief discussion on the tasks for the third quarter. Then, a summarized report was prepared for the Advisory Board. Advisory board members (including the academician Qingping Wu from Guangdong Provincial Institute of Microbiology, Prof. Lei Shi from Jinan University, Director Qiuxia Chen, vice director of the health laboratory of Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Hongdi Chen, chairman of Shenzhen Jiashun Food Co., Ltd., Prof. Hongtao Lei, executive dean of the Food College of South China Agricultural University, and Prof. Weijia Wen, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) joined the meeting in the afternoon on June 2nd and the advisory board meeting was hold.