Recent Developments In The Spread And Study Of Marine Turtle Fibropapillomatosis And The Fibropapilloma Associated Turtle Herpesvirus     Rebecca J. Murcek1, Claudia A. Sutton1, Sandra L. Quackenbush2, Thierry M. Work3, Rufina N. Casey1, Joel Rovnak2, George H. Balazs4, James W. Casey1   1Cornell University, Dept of Microbiology and Immunology, Ithaca NY; 2University of Kansas, Dept of Molecular Biosciences, Lawrence, KS; 3USGS, National Wildlife Health Center Honolulu Field Station, HI; 4National Marine Fisheries Service, Honolulu Laboratory, HI     Fibropapillomatosis (FP) of marine turtles is a recently emerging disease that affects turtles worldwide. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) studies identified the polymerase gene of a herpesvirus, named the Fibropapilloma Associated Turtle Herpesvirus (FPTHV), in tumor samples taken from FP-affected turtles. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) has demonstrated that FPTHV is present at high copy numbers (1 to 50 copies per cell) in FP tumor tissue. We examined the tissues of five different types of parasites (marine leeches, amphipods, three species of blood flukes, Pyelosomum longicaecum bladder parasites, and barnacles) of FP-affected Hawaiian green turtles (Chelonia mydas) to determine whether any of them carried enough virus to be possible vector organisms for FPTHV. Leeches were found to frequently carry high levels of viral DNA (10^6 to 10^7 copies per parasite organism). We have also found detectable levels of FPTHV in seawater from Kaneohe Bay. Most recently, we have cloned and sequenced approximately 30 kb of the FPTHV genome, confirming its classification as an alphaherpesvirus.