Lexington, KY - As long as Thoroughbreds run across Bluegrass pastures, people will remember the terrible Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome epidemic. In 2001 and 2002, when so many mares miscarried and newborn foals died, many people worked night and day to find out why. Among them were the pathologists at the University of Kentucky's Livestock Disease and Diagnostic Center.
Afterward, in 2003, Dr. Neil Williams, associate director of LDDC and a pathology faculty member, surveyed other diagnostic veterinary laboratories around the country. Williams found that LDDC "had the smallest lab, yet we had the highest caseload of all the labs responding."
Clearly there was a need to upgrade the facilities of LDDC, to better serve the state's agriculture industry and its signature crop: horses.
MRLS was "the seminal event that pointed out the importance of the diagnostic lab, but also pointed out some of our deficiencies," Williams explained.
The LDDC, located off Newtown Pike on UK's Coldstream campus, is undergoing new construction that will increase its size from 37,000 square feet to 64,000 square feet. The old building will be totally renovated. When the $28 million project is finished in late spring or summer of 2010, the new necropsy area will be three times larger than the present space. The buildings and technology "will all be state of the art," Williams said.
The upgrade at LDDC has resulted in full accreditation for all species by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD). This prestigious national qualification means that the LDDC is part of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network. The network is a U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative. It is part of the national defense against large-scale foreign animal disease outbreaks and provides a way to track such threats. Network membership also brings the opportunity to compete for grants for future improvements and additional work certifying herds for federal programs.
AAVLD accreditation is required before a laboratory can earn additional specialized accreditations that qualify it to perform particular tests. Williams said that LDDC will eventually qualify for some of these accreditations as well. Earning AAVLD accreditation required significantly improved facilities and five years of hard work by a team of people that included Dr. Lenn Harrison, retired LDDC director; Dr. Craig Carter, current director; and Dr. Scott Smith, dean, and Dr. Nancy Cox, associate dean, of UK's College of Agriculture.
Other UK staff and faculty, veterinarians across the state, legislators, and leaders within Kentucky's equine and agricultural communities joined the effort to convince the legislature to appropriate the necessary funds. "We got great support," Williams said.
Not only will LDDC have facilities and equipment, but it will have new software "that will link with our sister lab [at Murray State University] and the state vet's office. That will allow instantaneous sharing of data, real-time analysis and monitoring," Williams explained.
The new system will "enable us to do a better job of tracking our cases and reporting results and doing epidemiological reports - better surveillance," he added.
LDDC has about 55 employees. They serve a clientele that is largely veterinarians - with equine-only practices, mixed practices and small animal practices. While horses (mainly Thoroughbreds) represent the largest portion of their work, they also perform lab work and necropsies on other farm animals, cats, dogs and birds, both poultry and pets.
On the 60,000 accessions - which range from tissue and blood samples to deceased animals - LDDC staff members will run 200,000-300,000 tests. Each year the pathologists perform about 3,000 necropsies.
"A lot of our testing is to certify animals as disease-free, so they can be shipped elsewhere," Williams said. LDDC also tests sick animals "to prevent disease outbreaks on individual farms, to protect the rest of the herd."
Before competing in the Alltech 2010 World Equestrian Games, horses will be held in quarantine near the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. The state veterinarian's office will supervise testing of these horses, but LDDC will be involved.
Another part of UK's Equine Initiative has also received recent national recognition. Four researchers in the Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center and one within the College of Agriculture have won substantial grants for their research aimed at making horses healthier.
Dr. James MacLeod, a professor of veterinary science and Knight Chair, also serves as director of the Equine Initiative. The National Science Foundation (NSF) gave his equine musculoskeletal lab two grants, totaling $1.1 million over three years.
The major NSF grant will be used to develop computer-based analytical methods to study gene expression through RNA sequencing. MacLeod's collaborators on this grant are Dr. Jinze Liu, assistant professor of computer science at UK; Dr. Arne Bathke, associate professor of statistics at UK; and Dr. Jans Prins, chair of the computer science department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
The second grant, for $100,000, is from the Morris Animal Foundation. Jennifer James, a Gluck graduate student, will study equine cervical stenosis, commonly known as Wobbler Syndrome. When a horse's neck vertebrae pinch its spinal cord, treatment options are few. Usually the horse must be euthanized. James will focus on abnormal bone and cartilage formation in the neck vertebrae.
Also working on the project are veterinarians Steve Reed and Katie Garrett of Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital and Neil Williams of LDDC. "It is a good example of collaboration between Gluck, LDDC and veterinary practitioners," MacLeod said.
Dr. Ernest Bailey, professor of veterinary science, is known internationally for his work in mapping the equine genome. The Morris Animal Foundation awarded him a $28,125 grant to continue his work on SNP gene mapping.
SNPs, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, are the most common type of genetic variation. Bailey's immunogenetics and genomics work includes studying how genes control horses' immune system responses to disease.
Dr. Charles Issel, professor of veterinary science and Wright-Markey Chair in Equine Infectious Diseases, received $347,500 from the National Institutes of Health for a multi-year project on vaccine efficacy for Equine Infectious Anemia. Since 1974, Issel has been studying this dreaded disease, which is caused by a virus capable of numerous mutations. His research has additional value as a model for AIDS research because the viruses that cause both diseases are related.
Dr. Kristine Urschel, assistant professor in the College of Agriculture's department of animal and food science, was awarded a two-year, $100,000 grant from the Morris Animal Foundation. Urschel's research will be overseen by Dr. David Horohov, professor of veterinary science and Mills Chair in equine immunology at Gluck. As horses age, just like people, they lose muscle mass, which affects both their health and performance. Urschel said that she will be studying "how age, inflammation and Cushing's Disease affect the horse's protein metabolism."
What she discovers could lead to dietary changes and/or additives to horses' feed. Such changes and different management strategies would make life easier for older horses.
The accreditation and new facilities at LDDC and these research grants show again how important UK's contributions to the state's most important industry are. They are also two strong marks on UK's Top 20 tally sheet.