Back row: Morley, Dr. Michael Criscitiello, Pinnell Front row: Wenliang He, McClurg, Panaretos, Valeris-Chacin
Thirty-three student and faculty researchers from the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) made a splash with their research presentations at the 103rd Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases (CRWAD).
The VMBS representatives presented research to an audience of more than 600 scientists from around the world at CRWAD 2023, which was held from January 22-24 in Chicago.
VMBS team members delivered 22 presentations at CRWAD, including 15 by VERO representatives and 16 by graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. Four of these trainees also brought home prestigious awards for their research presentations.
Molly McClurg, a VERO graduate student advised by Drs. Paul Morley and Keri Norman, received the First Place Oral Presentation Award from the American College of Veterinary Microbiology for her presentation, “Does antimicrobial-free beef production reduce transmission of resistant bacteria to human consumers?”
Dr. Matthew Scott discussing his research poster
VERO graduate student Christopher Panaretos, who is advised by Dr. Robert Valeris-Chacin, received the Association for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine’s (AVEPM) First Place Poster Presentation Award for his poster “Design of an RNA bait set to enrich M. bovis genomic DNA in samples of the bovine respiratory tract.”
Colette Nickodem, a graduate student in Norman’s lab, received the AVEPM’s Second Place Oral Presentation Award for her presentation on “Natural and targeted bacteriophage treatments as a Salmonella pre-harvest mitigation technique in cattle feedlots,” which discussed research she conducted at the VERO facility in Canyon.
Finally, Dr. Lee Pinnell received the CRWAD’s Outstanding Presentation by a Post-Doctoral Fellow Award for his presentation, “Fusobacteria or Bacteroidetes? Microbial communities in bovine liver abscesses arise from throughout the gut.”
CRWAD 2023 also featured a keynote address on strategies for preventing Rhodococcal foal pneumonia by Dr. Noah Cohen, a Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor of equine internal medicine, the Glenn Blodgett Equine Chair in the VMBS’ Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, and associate department head for Research and Graduate Studies.
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For more information about the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, please visit our website at vetmed.tamu.edu or join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu,979-862-4216
Dr. Meichen Wang, a postdoctoral trainee in Texas A&M University’s Interdisciplinary Faculty of Toxicology, has been awarded a nearly $1 million career development grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Wang’s grant, an NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00), will provide support for her work developing new, edible therapies for people who have ingested per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals.”
PFAS are found in many industry and consumer products and can be released from landfills, industrial sites, and wastewater treatment plants, especially if these locations are impacted by natural or human-made disasters.
These long-lasting chemicals can take many decades to break down, which has led to their prevalence in the environment, including our food and water supplies. As a result, PFAS can be found in 99% of human blood samples in the United States.
Wang’s research will focus on creating edible sorbents, consisting of naturally occurring clays that are generally recognized as safe for human consumption, that have the ability to reduce PFAS bioavailability and toxicity in humans.
“I’m thrilled and humbled to receive this award,” Wang said. “I’m grateful to everyone who helped me and put trust in me, especially my mentor Dr. (Timothy) Phillips for his unconditional support. My goal is to discover therapeutic sorbents that can be applied to protect vulnerable populations from exposures to hazardous environmental chemicals.”
She plans to test sorbent efficacy against six representative PFAS using several different methods, including adsorption/desorption isothermal analysis and computational simulations. She will then conduct safety and efficacy studies to determine sorbents’ ability to reduce PFAS bioavailability without interfering with nutrient absorption.
By the end of the five-year grant period, Wang expects to have developed therapeutic sorbents that can be easily delivered orally to first responders and vulnerable populations who are exposed to high levels of PFAS through diet and drinking water.
Her work will be conducted under the mentorship of Phillips, a University Distinguished Professor at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. Co-mentors on her grant include Dr. Natalie Johnson, from the School of Public Health, and Dr. Phanourios Tamamis from the College of Engineering.
“[Meichen] is truly deserving of this wonderful award from NIEHS and will do marvelous work on her path to academic independence,” Phillips said. “I have directly observed her diligence and hard work, her passion for science, her creativity, and her high impact achievement in research.
“Meichen always strives to be a positive role model for the future generation, particularly young women in underserved communities,” he said. “I would rank her at the top of the very best that I have mentored over the last 43 years. Her past performances are clearly harbingers of a very bright future as an environmental toxicologist. ”
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For more information about the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, please visit our website at vetmed.tamu.edu or join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu,979-862-4216
There’s nothing more satisfying than filling an empty stomach with food, but unknowingly serving or eating spoiled or contaminated food can cause health concerns. While humans may experience food poisoning as a result, horses can develop botulism, which is deadly.
To keep horses healthy, Dr. Amanda Trimble, a clinical assistant professor of equine internal medicine at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, recommends familiarizing yourself with botulism symptoms and preventative measures.
Botulism, a neuromuscular disease, develops in horses who have ingested the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. This bacterium is commonly found in the environment but can grow rapidly in food spoiled by climate or contaminated with dead animals like rodents or birds. When it grows rapidly, the bacteria releases a potent neurotoxin that causes botulism when ingested.
There are two common forms of botulism in horses that are determined by age—shaker foal syndrome and flaccid paralysis.
Shaker foal syndrome is typically seen in foals aged 1-2 months. At this age, the gastrointestinal tract has not developed fully and does not have the natural defenses to prevent the toxin from colonizing the intestine. This results in difficulty swallowing, coughing, drooling, and muscle tremors.
On the other hand, flaccid paralysis is seen in adult horses with botulism, which affects the whole body. The most common presentation of this form of botulism is severe weakness.
Adult horses impacted by botulism can also show signs of dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, eating, and holding feed; increased salivation; tiredness; difficulty exercising and taking more time to rest; muscle weakness such as droopy eyelids and floppy tail; muscle tremors; stumbling or buckling at the knees; and an unwillingness to stand or difficulty standing.
“Signs are typically dose dependent, meaning the more toxin that is ingested, the worse the clinical signs,” Trimble said. “Horses who have ingested a low dose may only have mild clinical signs that resolve over a week or two.”
Regardless of the suspected dose amount, Trimble recommends owners contact their veterinarian as soon as signs of dysphagia or weakness appear because foals and adult horses will experience progressive weakness, collapse, and even death if botulism is left untreated.
“Depending on the amount of toxin ingested, a horse can respond to therapy more quickly if owners identify the signs of botulism and intervene early,” Trimble said. “Early administration of the antitoxin and select antibiotics in addition to intensive supportive care is important to resolving botulism.”
Botulism can be prevented by maintaining the quality of a horse’s food to prevent the bacteria from growing. Trimble suggests that owners properly store hay and feed in climate- and pest-controlled environments and check for spoilage before feeding.
“Hay should smell sweet, whereas spoiled hay smells sour, may be warm and moist to the touch, or you may see mold,” Trimble explained.
Haylage and silage, however, are more prone to spoil because they have a higher moisture content than hay and feed. While hay is fresh cut grass left out to dry until it has a moisture content of less than 12%, haylage and silage is wilted or fresh cut grass packed into bales to hold more moisture. As a result, haylage has a moisture content between 15% to 40%, and silage has a moisture content greater than 40%.
“When possible, avoid feeding silage, haylage, and other fermented feeds to horses due to an increased risk of spoilage,” Trimble advised.
In addition to checking for spoilage, Trimble recommends owners check for animal carcasses and bones before feeding their horse and if dead animals are found, throw out the food and provide horses with fresh hay or feed.
If owners suspect their horse has ingested spoiled or contaminated food, they should visit the veterinarian just as they would if they saw their horse exhibiting the clinical signs of botulism.
To prevent the risk of botulism, owners should first be aware of the disease and its consequences. Then, by watching carefully for the clinical signs and maintaining the quality of horses’ food, you can keep your horse safe from botulism.
Pet Talk is a service of the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University. Stories can be viewed on the web at vetmed.tamu.edu/news/pet-talk. Suggestions for future topics may be directed to vmbs-editor@tamu.edu.
In order to be considered for the clinical trial of the new, non-surgical IVDD/herniated disk treatment, dogs must be seen by the Small Animal Teaching Hospital within three days of the onset of symptoms. For more information, please contact the Texas A&M Office of Veterinary Clinical Investigation at vetclinicaltrials@tamu.edu.
Oscar
When Oscar, a 5-year-old Dachshund, developed partial paralysis from a herniated disc, he became the first dog to experience a new, non-surgical treatment option through a veterinary clinical trial at the Texas A&M Small Animal Teaching Hospital (SATH).
Herniated discs are common in short-legged breeds like Dachshunds and can cause rapid onset of paralysis.
“It was very sudden,” said Oscar’s owner, Ashley Williams. “At maybe 5 p.m. one evening he was breathing funny, and then by 7 p.m. he was dragging his back feet.”
Williams rushed Oscar to her local veterinarian, Dr. Jessica Nelson ’19, who diagnosed the herniated disk and recommended surgery, the typical treatment for the condition.
But when Williams expressed her concern about being able to afford the surgery, Nelson recalled a clinical trial being led by Dr. Nick Jeffery, a professor at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (VMBS), that could offer Oscar a non-surgical treatment option at a much-reduced cost.
Once Oscar arrived at the SATH for his procedure, he became the first participant in Jeffery’s trial.
A New Technique
“Dogs often herniate discs in their spine; it can lead to paralysis in the back legs and incontinence,” Jeffery said. “The usual way we treat this is by doing surgery to take that disc out, but that’s really quite expensive and a lot of people don’t have that sort of money lying around.”
Rather than surgically removing the damaged disc, the new method involves injecting an enzyme into the disc to dissolve it.
“Enzymes are specific in what they can do and what materials they can digest,” he said. “I’ve done other studies with the same enzyme, so I also know that it’s quite safe to use next to the spinal cord.”
Jeffery is testing this method specifically to help owners who can’t afford the expensive surgery usually used to treat herniated discs. Through his clinical trial, he’s collecting data on the speed of recovery and degree of recovery of function to determine if the enzyme could be an effective alternative.
He plans to perform the enzyme injection on 30 small-breed dogs who develop herniated discs and can arrive at the SATH no more than 48 hours after the onset of their inability to walk without support.
“This is a very common condition in small-breed dogs, and there are probably many owners who can’t afford to get the surgery done,” Jeffery said. “Once we get a reasonable number of cases, we’ll be able to definitively tell whether the injection is a good alternative.”
Back On His Feet
Jeffery, Oscar, and Williams
Among the benefits of Jeffery’s method are that the procedure is much faster and less intense than the traditional surgery. Oscar only needed injections into the spine through regular-sized needles and was back home the next day.
“One of the interesting things about the injection procedure was that it seems to have no adverse effects on him,” Jeffery said. “Oscar was really happy the whole time, and he looked much more comfortable afterward than dogs that get surgery.”
While it only took a matter of hours for the enzyme to digest Oscar’s herniated disc, it took a bit longer for the spinal cord to recover enough for him to walk again. But only 20 days after the procedure, about the same amount of time it would have taken after surgery, Oscar passed the standard of being able to walk a 50-step distance (about 40 feet for him) without support.
Three months after his procedure, Oscar completely regained his ability to walk and was starting to run again.
“Getting him to stop chasing a squirrel a few days ago was very comical because he’s faster than I am, even in his current state,” Williams said.
She credits the clinical trial with saving Oscar’s life and hopes it can offer a similar outcome for other owners who would struggle to afford the traditional surgery.
Dog owners and veterinarians can learn more about the clinical trial here.
For more information about the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, please visit our website at vetmed.tamu.edu or join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu,979-862-4216
Preliminary data indicate that the compounds developed in the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Safe both kill tumors and rejuvenate the immune system, which becomes exhausted as it responds to cancer.
Dr. Stephen Safe is leading a team of researchers from Texas A&M University and Houston Methodist Hospital.
A team of Texas A&M University researchers has received a $2.3-millon grant from the National Institutes of Health to further explore a unique immunotherapy that could be the first of its kind to treat colon cancer and could hold the key to treating other forms of cancer as well.
The collaborative, four-year project will determine how to best utilize a new class of drugs developed in the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Safe, a Distinguished Professor in the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences’ (VMBS) Department of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology. The project will also explore the effects of the new compounds on human and murine cancer cells.
Led by Safe, the team also includes VMBS researchers Gus Wright and James Cai, as well as College of Agriculture and Life Sciences researcher Robert Chapkin and Houston Methodist Hospital oncologist Maen Abdelrahim.
Safe’s compounds target two receptors—NR4A1 and NR4A2—that are normally responsible for helping humans and animals lower stress levels but are overexpressed in colon cancer and other solid tumors.
“In the case of solid tumors, these two receptors are bad; they regulate the growth of a cell, how it metastasizes, how it invades, and how it survives,” Safe said. “When we screened these receptors, we found out that our compounds that we’ve been working on over the years bind with high affinity (binding strongly). Binding can sometimes be bad, making the tumor worse, or binding can be good, by being an antagonist. In this case, the compounds are antagonists—they just wipe out the tumor.”
Not only does their preliminary data indicate that their compounds act as an immunotherapy and kill the tumor, but the compounds also rejuvenate the immune system, which becomes exhausted as it responds to cancer.
“Immune cells play a very important role in cancer treatment,” Safe said. “But what happens with tumor development is that eventually, the immune cells just get exhausted and become unable to mount a ‘tumor-killing’ response.
“Dr. Jim Allison and Dr. Tasuku Honjo’s Nobel Prize-winning work found that at least one of the reasons the immune cells don’t work is that they’re not only exhausted, but they don’t function because tumors can suppress immune cells, especially T-cells (which target specific foreign particles, such as cancer cells) and thereby avoid immune cell-dependent tumor surveillance (the tumors are misidentified as immune cells by the immune system),” Safe said.
Immunotherapies work by separating the T-cells from the tumor, allowing the immune system to destroy the tumor the way it would any other infection in your body.
Immunotherapies stimulate the body’s own immune system to kill cancer cells.
“One of the signals (the communication mechanism between T-cells and tumors), or checkpoints, is a gene called PD-L1, which is a checkpoint inhibitor; checkpoints bring the immune cell and the tumor cell together,” Safe said. “We found that in breast and colon cancer, NR4A1 regulates PD-L1 in the tumor, and treatment with our antagonist decreases PD-L1 expression and sensitizes the tumor to immune surveillance, killing it.”
By isolating the immune cells, Wright, an associate research scientist in the VMBS’ Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, was able to analyze the T-cells for markers of exhaustion and determined that with Safe’s compounds, those markers were “wiped out.”
“Previous studies showed that NR4A1 played a role in T-cell exhaustion, and our unique NR4A1 antagonists not only target NR4A1 in the tumor but also in T-cells; this dual targeting (the killing of the tumor and rejuvenating the immune system) is consistent with their high anticancer activity in mouse models.”
In the next phase of their research, the team will use the NIH grant to explore other areas of how the compounds work to, hopefully, prepare it for clinical trials.
While Safe works to “maximize” the compounds—that is, to select the most effective molecules for achieving their end goal—and to assess compound dosages, Abdelrahim, who is co-principal investigator on the project, will be examining the effects of the compound on human tissue; Wright will be working to further explore implications on the immune system; Cai, an associate professor in the VMBS’ Department of Integrative Biosciences, will be investigating how other individual cell types are affected by the compounds; and Chapkin, the Allen Endowed Chair in Nutrition & Chronic Disease Prevention and a University Distinguished Professor, will be further analyzing effects of NR4A1-targeting compounds on colonic epithelial stem cells in tumors.
Chapkin, Wright, and Cai will also perform a single cell multi-omic analysis of the colon tumor microenvironment to probe the mechanistic underpinnings of NR4A1-dependent modulation of T-cell exhaustion.
Ultimately, Safe believes their NR4A1-targeting drugs will also attenuate other types of cancer, including breast cancer, glioblastoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma, the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children.
“A lot of drugs that oncologists use now just target the specific genes/pathways in tumor cell—the drug kills it and the tumor usually regresses,” he said. “Those drugs are effective and inhibit some tumor growth, but they’re only targeting the tumor; they’re not targeting immune cells. I’m not sure how many drugs currently being used target both the tumor and the immune cells, but ours do, and this accounts for their potency in preclinical animal models.”
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For more information about the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, please visit our website at vetmed.tamu.edu or join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu,979-862-4216
Four faculty members of the Texas A&M Superfund Research Center conducted a series of lecture-based and hands-on training workshops in Taiwan, sharing their knowledge and expertise in disaster research response (DR2).
From January 9-13, Drs. Ivan Rusyn and Weihsueh Chiu from the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (VMBS), along with Drs. Thomas McDonald and Garett Sansom from the Texas A&M School of Public Health, taught more than 50 hours of material in three locations across Taiwan.
The teams visited National Taiwan University in Taipei, National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, and National University of Science and Technology in Kaohsiung to train faculty and students, as well as employees and contractors for the Toxic and Chemical Substances Bureau of Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration.
“We are delighted to share our collective expertise from DR2 research in the Superfund Research Center,” said Rusyn, a University Professor in the VMBS’ Department of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology and chair of the Interdisciplinary Faculty of Toxicology at Texas A&M University. “This trip was very enlightening, as we not only had the opportunity to see how our research solutions can be applied globally but also to learn from our partners in Taiwan. This collaboration will sustain through future mutual exchanges, and we are looking forward to working together to find ways to combat effects of climate change and natural disasters.”
The trainings covered topics such as new experimental approaches to fulfilling regulatory requirements for mixtures and complex substances, rapid risk assessment in disaster scenarios, environmental sampling, and human studies in environmental justice communities (communities predominantly comprising persons socially and/or economically disadvantaged who are subjected to a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards).
“Taiwan has many similarities with urban areas in the U.S., including the Houston area, in that there are many petrochemical and other industrial facilities situated next to fence-line communities, along with a potential for increased environmental hazards due to both natural and human-made disasters,” Chiu said. “We were happy to share our experiences addressing these complex issues with colleagues who face similar challenges.”
The Superfund team also presented case studies on their response to Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Hurricane Florence in 2018, and Houston’s ITC fires in 2019.
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For more information about the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, please visit our website at vetmed.tamu.edu or join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu,979-862-4216
When the weather dips into cold and freezing temperatures, especially at night, humans stay cozy by turning on heaters and pulling out extra blankets. Food animals, on the other hand, require special preparation to stay warm and survive cold weather conditions.
Dr. Isabelle Louge, a clinical assistant professor at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, pointed out that the best way to keep food animals warm is to make sure they have enough food.
This is because when animals shiver from the cold to increase their internal body temperature, they use more calories. Using calories without replenishing them by eating can lead to health risks such as losing too much weight. Providing animals, especially those that are still growing, with extra calories will continue to keep them warm as they shiver.
“This is especially necessary for very young animals that are being bottle raised,” Louge said.
Owners who are bottle feeding during the colder months should use milk or milk replacer, mixed according to the manufacturer’s instructions, and ensure the liquid is warmed prior to feeding, according to Louge.
Herbivores, like ruminants, generate more heat after eating hay than grain because hay has more fiber. Herbivore gut microbes, or microorganisms that live in the digestive tract of animals, ferment the fiber in hay, which produces extra heat as a byproduct of the fermentation.
“Grain is very quickly broken down by the fermentation process, while hay takes longer for the bacteria to break down,” Louge explained. “So the longer breakdown process of hay produces more heat over time than grain breakdown.”
If herbivores are fed grain during the winter, Louge advises owners to increase the amount of grain slowly and not give excessive amounts, since overeating can lead to digestive problems and digestive diseases. Local veterinarians can guide owners on the amount to feed their animals.
Omnivores such as pigs and chickens, on the other hand, can warm up by increasing the total amount of feed.
In addition, because water is the most essential nutrient, Louge encourages owners to check their animal’s water every three to four hours to ensure it remains unfrozen during freezing temperatures. Alternatively, owners can use thawing devices and immersible water heaters to keep water thawed for longer periods of time.
“Animals can become dehydrated quickly in the cold,” Louge explained. “Often, one of the challenges is encouraging them to drink when the water is very cold; many do not enjoy drinking water below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. You can sometimes encourage drinking by offering warmer water (50-70 degrees Fahrenheit).”
Another way to keep animals toasty is to provide areas that keep them out of the elements.
“It’s easier to be warm when you are dry and out of the wind,” Louge said. “Very muddy and wet conditions will make an animal’s fur and hair less efficient at trapping heat and chill them much faster as the temperature drops.”
Providing additional heat sources in an animal’s environment can be beneficial, but not all sources of heat, such as heat lamps, are safe for animals. If owners insist on using heat lamps, Louge recommends following the manufacturer’s instructions when hanging lamps and ensuring lamps are hung far away from bedding and the walls to avoid a fire. Additionally, owners should check that their animals cannot reach the lamp.
“In general, I always advise against heat lamps,” Louge shared. “I’ve had too many clients lose their animals to barn fires, even when they were being careful.”
Instead, Louge suggests using deep bedding as an alternative to heat lamps for keeping animals warm during winter weather.
Incorporating these tips into your winter preparation routine is an easy way to keep food animals warm during colder months. By having plenty of food, warm water, and cozy bedding, food animals will remain comfortable, and you can have peace of mind knowing they are safe.
Pet Talk is a service of the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University. Stories can be viewed on the web at vetmed.tamu.edu/news/pet-talk. Suggestions for future topics may be directed to vmbs-editor@tamu.edu.
The top two experts on dogs in the world are faculty members at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (VMBS), according to the life sciences search engine system Expertscape.
The top-ranked expert for the topic “dogs” is Dr. Jan Suchodolski, a VMBS professor, the associate director for research in the VMBS’ Gastrointestinal Laboratory, and the Purina Petcare Endowed Chair for Microbiome Research. Close behind him at No. 2 is Dr. Jörg Steiner, a Regents Professor, University Distinguished Professor, the director of the GI Lab, and the Dr. Mark Morris Chair in Small Animal Gastroenterology & Nutrition.
Expertscape is an artificial intelligence system that objectively ranks experts in the life sciences based on all medical journal articles published in the past 10 years.
Each publication is assigned a score based on how recently it was published, the journal it appeared in, and the article’s type (for example, research and clinical studies will rank high than editorial pieces). The system also factors in if an expert was first author, second author, etc.
These scores are then used to determine the top countries, regions, cities, institutions, and individual experts for more than 29,000 topics.
“Jan and Joerg are both so humble, generous, and collaborative, it is easy to forget their international renown and the huge impact of their studies,” said Dr. Michael Criscitiello, VMBS associate dean for Research & Graduate Studies. “We are very fortunate to have the GI lab and that that they have led to global prominence, elevating our research and training environment here at A&M.”
About The Experts
Dr. Jan Suchodolski
Suchodolski and Steiner share several aspects of their careers in addition to their expertise on dogs; both earned their doctoral degrees in veterinary medicine overseas—Suchodolski in Austria and Steiner in Germany—and both are members of several prestigious national and international associations for veterinary gastroenterologists and internal medicine specialists.
Much of Suchodolski’s research involves working to understand the microbiome and metabolome (the complete set of small-molecule chemicals produced during metabolism) of cats and dogs, including how they interact with antibiotics.
His work has been funded by the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation, the United States Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Defense, and more.
According to Expertscape, Suchodolski has contributed to 164 articles about dogs.
Steiner’s research often involves the pancreas, hepatobiliary system, and the gastrointestinal system. One of his most notable accomplishments is the development of a diagnostic test for pancreatitis, the first of its kind.
Steiner has contributed to 153 articles about dogs, according to Expertscape.
Together, and with the other seven faculty members and GI Lab staff members, they also help an international clientele of veterinarians diagnose and treat gastrointestinal diseases in dogs and cats.
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For more information about the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, please visit our website at vetmed.tamu.edu or join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu,979-862-4216
Research from Dr. Michael Golding’s laboratory at Texas A&M University highlights the need to expand prepregnancy messaging to emphasize the reproductive dangers of alcohol use by both parents.
Dr. Michael Golding and Alexis Roach
Research from Dr. Michael Golding’s laboratory at Texas A&M University indicates that male alcohol use has a significant negative influence on in vitro fertilization (IVF) success rates, thus increasing patient financial burden and emotional stress.
The recently published work is part of Golding’s research program focused on understanding how male drinking prior to conception contributes to the development of alcohol-induced birth defects and disease. This particular study highlights the importance of expanding fertility and prepregnancy messaging to emphasize the reproductive danger of alcohol use by both parents, not just the mother.
Couples struggling with fertility are increasingly using assisted reproductive technologies (ART) like IVF to have children.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 2% of all babies born in the United States are conceived using ART, which would mean 1 in 50 babies were conceived using ART in 2021, according to the CDC’s provisional births data.
These statistics highlight the growing importance of looking at both parent’s contributions to fertility and pregnancy outcomes, according to Golding, an associate professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences’ Department of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology.
“We say to the woman, ‘you need to be careful of what you eat. You need to stop smoking. You need to be doing all these different things to improve fertility,’” Golding said. “We don’t say anything to the man, and that’s a mistake, because what we’re seeing here is that the couple’s odds of success with their IVF procedure are increasing simply by addressing both parents’ health habits.”
Golding’s research used a mouse model to determine the effects of a potential father’s drinking on IVF pregnancy outcomes. The model included a control group that represented males who do not drink, a group that represented males who participate in chronic drinking at the legal limit, and a group that represented males who participate in chronic drinking at one and a half times the legal limit.
The results of the research revealed that the more a male drinks before providing sperm for an IVF pregnancy, the less likely the pregnancy is to be successful.
“Seeing the negative effects in both the legal limit group and the group drinking at one and a half times the legal limit revealed that as alcohol dose increases, things get worse,” Golding explained. “That really surprised me. I didn’t think that it would be that cut and dry. That really emphasized that even very modest levels of exposure were breaking through and having an impact on conception, implantation, and overall IVF pregnancy success rates.”
Alexis Roach, a Ph.D. candidate helping conduct research in Goldings lab, served as first author of the recently published IVF research paper. She said their findings and other research conducted in Golding’s laboratory challenge the primarily maternal-focused narrative of previous IVF research. She also said it’s important to make the findings of this research accessible to the public.
“The most important aspect of this research is that it makes it clear that everybody plays a role in achieving successful pregnancy outcomes, even though the general assumption is that it’s just women,” Roach said. “The most important thing to take away from this is that if you’re a male considering having a family, abstain from alcohol until your wife gets pregnant.”
The research concludes that male alcohol use hinders an embryo’s ability to successfully implant in the uterus and reduces IVF embryo survival rates. The research also revealed more questions about fetal development and paternal drinking. Golding’s lab is continuing to research these questions and the paternal aspects of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, a group of conditions that can occur when a person is exposed to alcohol before birth. His work aims to provide a holistic look at understanding fetal development and pregnancy by examining the father’s role in it.
For now, he says the next step in improving IVF pregnancy outcomes is getting the discoveries from this research into the hands, eyes, and ears of the people considering ART to help start their own families.
“It is important to remember that couples struggling with fertility who have chosen to pursue IVF are under intense emotional and financial pressure, which is associated with a feeling of helplessness,” Golding pointed out. “Our study demonstrates that drinking alcohol is an unrecognized factor that negatively impacts IVF pregnancy success rates. Therefore, as alcohol use is easily changed, our study identifies a shared action item that can empower the couple to work together toward their goal of becoming pregnant.”
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For more information about the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, please visit our website at vetmed.tamu.edu or join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu,979-862-4216
Having a stressed or sick pet is concerning, especially if diarrhea, gas, and digestive issues are present. A probiotic could ease those digestive issues, but there are some considerations that an owner should be aware of before choosing one.
Dr. Emily Gould, a clinical assistant professor at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences’ Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, explores reasons for using probiotics and what makes a probiotic more effective.
Probiotics are supplemental, live bacteria found in certain foods or pills that generally improve gut health when there is too much harmful bacteria present. This irregularity of bacterial imbalances can be caused either by an intestinal disease or following the use of antibiotics.
For example, when a pet visits the veterinary clinic because of an illness, a veterinarian may prescribe antibiotics to treat an infection. In addition to eliminating the bacteria making your furry friend sick, the antibiotics can also decrease beneficial bacteria, causing an imbalance in the digestive tract. Your pet may experience diarrhea as a result.
“The purpose of administering a probiotic would be to replenish ‘good bacteria’ in the pet’s gut in order to restore a healthier intestinal gut ecosystem, correcting the imbalance,” Gould said.
Because there are limited studies on probiotics in veterinary medicine, it can be difficult to decide which supplements are beneficial. The range of probiotics available offer different varieties, types, and amounts of good bacteria; while researching the best probiotic can take time, it will also benefit your pet in the long run.
“There are a few products that either have studies to show it benefits our veterinary patients, or veterinarians have enough experience with them to know they provide benefits,” Gould said. “For example, we think of probiotics with more different types of bacteria as being more balanced and in general ‘better’ probiotics to give. Increased diversity of good bacteria is associated with a better product.”
Probiotics should not cause any side effects as long as they are purchased from a reliable company that is known to be safe for pets, explained Gould.
For those whose pets are going through an elimination diet trial, a strict diet that slowly reintroduces foods to determine a pet’s allergies, Gould recommends looking at a probiotic’s label to make sure there is no flavoring. Probiotics from a reputable company will be of good quality and not have flavoring contamination.
“Many probiotic products will have animal protein flavoring or just not have good quality control during product manufacturing which can result in contamination,” Gould said. “This can definitely confound the effects of your food trial.”
Gould pointed out, however, that probiotics are supplements and will not treat other health issues. If there is chronic or severe vomiting, diarrhea, or changes in appetite, pet owners should take pets to their veterinarian to discuss the best solution.
“Although cats and dogs with chronic intestinal disorders might have symptoms that benefit from the probiotic, owners should know that probiotics are usually not a sole treatment,” Gould said. “Other diagnostics and therapeutics are usually necessary to find the root of the problem and treat it.”
Nevertheless, Gould says probiotics are great for pets with tummy troubles.
In the event your furry friend is having a tough time with their gut, talk to your veterinarian about different types of probiotics as a possible solution so that your pet can get back to feeling like themselves sooner. They might even thank you with a wagging tail!
Pet Talk is a service of the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University. Stories can be viewed on the web at vetmed.tamu.edu/news/pet-talk. Suggestions for future topics may be directed to vmbs-editor@tamu.edu.
