My SAWorldVets Conservation Experience

Brian Tighe, Ross University

Experiences, Honorable Mention 

Often times when a person says you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with a multimillion dollar industry, the opportunity to take care of animals that run into the tens of thousands of dollars per individual, a lot of feelings can come rushing towards you.  Excitement at the opportunity, disbelief in the trust placed upon you, anxiety over the possibility of a single mishap ruining your entire career, but the one emotion you would never expect is complacency.   Sable antelope, Hippotragus niger, is a species of antelope found in the savannahs of Africa.  Its rarity is dependent on the subspecies, spanning the spectrum from critically endangered to least concern, but that “least concern” label didn’t happen by itself. 

The farmers of South Africa have learned what valuable assets these animals can be, allowing offers from wealthy folks all over the world to spill in to purchase them for a variety of reasons, the most being hunting.  This gave great incentive to increase their numbers.  So when this student says he grew complacent seeing these creatures, he wasn’t bored or uninterested in them.  It was the sheer fact that on any given day as he drove threw the country, visiting farm after farm, these animals were everywhere.  Ever been to Pennsylvania and seen all the white-tailed deer?  Or how about sheep in New Zealand?  Or castles in Ireland?  It was kind of like that.  By the end of the trip we had seen so many Sable antelope we stopped taking pictures of them.  And you know what other emotion that made us realize on our journey back?  Pride in the efforts of conservationists, farmers, and veterinarians who were able to take an animal who used to have such low numbers and blow them up into a common sighting.

            I was one of fourteen students who went on an excursion to South Africa to follow a wildlife veterinarian as he worked to help farmers and maintain conservation of the animal species there.  The group was called SAWorldVets and was worth every penny.  Essentially we were following him on a day to day work schedule, awakening each morning before sunrise to whatever was scheduled, lunch, going out to calls, and then finally coming back in the evening to crash around the campfire.  Luckily for us, we just so happened to arrive two weeks before a giant auction that would involve many of the farmers in the area and, of course, they all wanted their animals in top shape.

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Meme + Vetmed

Morgan Jacobsen, Western University

Foot In Mouth Disease, Honorable Mention

Stemness and the Post-Injection Response of the Equine Joint to MSC Injection

Jessica Xu, Texas A&M University

Cases/Abstracts, Honorable Mention

Jiajie Jessica Xu, Amanda-Jo Joswig, Ashlee Watts
Comparative Orthopedics and Regenerative Medicine Lab, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University
Merial Veterinary Scholars Program and the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University
Link Equine Research Endowment

Stemness and the Post-Injection Response of the Equine Joint to MSC Injection

A mesynchymal stem cell (MSC)’s ability to undergo trilineage differentiation into osteoblasts, adipocytes, and chondroblasts in vitro is one of the defining characteristics of MSC stemness. This quality allows MSCs to be used as a source of cells in tissue engineering and cell therapy. In addition to cellular differentiation, MSCs also play a role in modulating inflammatory responses by releasing anti-inflammatory factors during tissue repair. Though traditional stemness has been associated with effective tissue repair, the relationship between MSC stemness and immunomodulatory function is unknown. To study this, bone marrow derived MSCs were collected from 6 horses, and injected autologously. The same MSCs were also injected allogeneically into 6 separate horses. Joint fluid cytologic analysis was performed on injected joints to assess the inflammatory response. Stem cells from the donor horses were then cultured in vitro and tested for their ability to undergo trilineage differentiation using visual grading systems. By comparing MSC inflammatory response with stemness qualities, this study re-examines the criteria of what it means to be an effective stem cell. 

"Rongeurs"

Hannah Fearing, University of Georgia

Creative Corner, Winner

"Rongeurs"

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Surfactant protein D as a biomarker of bronchopneumonia in calves

Jennifer Storer, University of Tennessee

Cases/Abstracts, Honorable Mention

Title: Surfactant protein D as a biomarker of bronchopneumonia in calves.

 
Bronchopneumonia in cattle is a costly disease caused by multiple pathogens. Mannheimia haemolytica is the most frequently isolated etiologic agent and induces tremendous inflammation through the production of a leukotoxin. Surfactant protein D is produced by type II pneumocytes and is tissue specific for the lungs. During alveolar inflammation these proteins are up-regulated and may be released into the blood. We hypothesized that these proteins could be detected in the serum and serve as biomarkers for alveolar membrane damage and overall pulmonary inflammation. This study used bronchoselective endoscopic inoculation of Mannheimia haemolytica or sterile saline of the right apical lung lobe in twelve 4 month old dairy calves. Six principal calves received 3-5 x 109 colony forming units of M. haemolytica in a 5mL suspension of phosphate-buffered saline, while 6 control calves received an equivalent volume of sterile phosphate buffered saline (PBS). Serum and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) samples were collected to analyze surfactant protein D with a bovine specific ELISA. Serum samples were collected daily for seven days, while BAL samples were collected on days 0, 1, 3, 5, and 7. Calves were additionally assigned a clinical illness score twice daily and a datalogger outfitted with accelerometers were placed on the left rear fetlock of each calf to assess behavioral changes. We hope the results of this study will provide information for the use of surfactant proteins in the diagnosis of BRD.