Veterinary Research Not Just for Animals
Fungus at the Genetic Level
Matter of Survival
Risk in the Meat Supply
VCM Head Shifts Focus Research
Broad Menu of Oncology Research
You’d expect a medical school to foster basic and clinical research
with life-saving implications. But you might be surprised at the extent
to which research conducted at a veterinary medical school benefits human
“Spectacular advances in knowledge are melding scientific disciplines
such as genetics, epidemiology, pathology, cell bi-ology, physiology, biochemistry,
and clinical medicine,” says Dr. Howard Gelberg, associate dean for research
at the College of Veterinary Medicine. “The concept of ‘one medicine’ is
becoming a reality. Regardless of species, the biological mechanisms leading
to disease are the same.”
Veterinary faculty, with superb grounding in animal biology and access
to animal models of all types, are uniquely positioned to assume a leadership
role in biomedical research. Our College has strategically identified research
strengths in the areas of reproductive biology, infectious diseases, and
environmental toxicology. Clinical imaging, oncology, and food safety represent
areas of emerging emphasis.
While some research conducted here is specific to an animal species,
much has benefits for both animals and humans or is directed solely toward
human health. Recent issues of Veterinary Report have noted a few examples:
improvements in artificial heart valves and surgical techniques to treat
cardiovascular disease; advances that may allow children with bone cancer
to grow normally with healthy limbs; findings about the role of estrogen
in male fertility.
Whether it specifically addresses the health of humans or animals or
whether it more broadly addresses environmental health, research is central
to the College’s mission, complementing the teaching and service missions.
“Research provides the new knowledge that we use to teach the next generation
of veterinarians. It underpins clinical advances,” says Dr. Gelberg. One
quarter of all DVM students are involved with faculty research at some
point in their studies.
Research also forms the basis for the respect accorded the veterinary
field, from the scientific community through to our client base. “Research
has the power to propel the veterinary medical profession into a position
of prominence in the next century,” asserts Dr. Gelberg. The research program
at the College is growing:
research expenditures in FY98 totaled $5.4 million, up from $4 million
on FY 97 and $3 million in FY 96.
The stories here illustrate a variety of ways research at the College
contributes to improvements in human health.
Learn more about CVM faculty research at the Office of Research home
page on the Web! Go to http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/research/home.
Fighting Fungus at the Genetic Level
The fungus Candida albicans is most commonly known for causing
superficial yeast infections in humans and animals, but it also causes
bloodstream infections that can be fatal. Strains of C. albicans
that are better able to adhere to the surface of host cells are also more
likely to cause disease.
the past several years, Dr. Lois Hoyer, veterinary pathobiology, has
been studying the mechanism by which C. albicans adheres to host
tissue. She discovered a family of genes that encode cell-surface proteins
involved in adhesion and has identified and characterized seven genes
in this family. Now her laboratory is trying to learn how proteins made
by these genes are involved in the interactions between C. albicans
and its host.
Such information could be used to find ways to block adhesion, ultimately
leading to new treatments for fungal infections. Developing adjunct therapies
to current antifungal treatments is especially important as resistance
to antifungal drugs continues to rise.
Dr. Hoyer received her Ph.D. in veterinary pathobiology from the University
of Illinois in 1989 and completed postdoctoral training at SmithKline Beecham
Pharmaceuticals, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and Iowa State University
before returning to Illinois in 1996.
A Matter of Survival
Whether he’s studying frogs in Urbana or flamingos in Kenya, Dr. Val
Beasley, veterinary biosciences, identifies factors that threaten wild
creatures and the ecosystems on which they depend.
With Environmental Protection Agency funding, Dr. Beasley currently
leads a team of graduate students and scientists from Illinois, Wisconsin,
and Minnesota studying frogs and features of ecosystems that allow them
to thrive or cause their disappearance. Frogs are “ecological sentinels.”
Because their eggs develop in water, tadpoles eat algae and hide among
plants, and adults travel overland to feed and find new breeding sites,
these species rely on all components of the Midwestern environment for
Loss of fishless wetlands, adding fertilizers and pesticides, killing
vegetation in and around lakes, deepening waters at shorelines, introducing
carnivorous and herbivorous fish, and pollution have hurt frog populations.
Keys to survival of amphibians include ending contamination, allowing migration,
and more astute fisheries management.
Dr. Beasley says the affordable way to maintain a range of wild native
species is to ensure that human activities, including cities and agriculture,
are enclosed by networked natural habitats that remain free from harmful
chemicals and introduced species.
After earning a DVM from Purdue University Dr. Beasley practiced veterinary
medicine for six years in New Jersey and Ohio before pursuing a Ph.D. in
toxicology at the University of Illinois. He is also board certified in
veterinary toxicology. At the College he has played an important role in
National Animal Poison Control Center before it moved to the ASPCA in
1996. Dr. Beasley has been professor of toxicology and chair of pharmacology
and toxicology at the College since 1996.
Reducing Risk in the Meat Supply
Reported cases of Salmonella food poisoning have doubled over the past
25 years, reaching 40,000 a year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
attributes the increase in part to changes in how food animals are raised
Each year, one third of the approximately 9 million dairy cows in the
United States will be culled from the herd. Most of these enter the meat
trade. Culled dairy cattle can account for about 18% of U.S. ground beef.
And ground beef is a prime vehicle for food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella.
H. Fred Troutt has been working with researchers from the University
of California-Davis, Cornell University, and Kansas State to study the
presence of Salmonella in and on dairy cows sent to slaughter on both
U.S. coasts. Prevalence varied, but tended to increase from farm or
auction barn to meat processing plant.
Now that the prevalence data have been collected, Dr. Troutt is ready
to address the next questions: What are effective interventions for reducing
the risk of microbial contamination? How can we put these findings into
practice throughout the industry—from the farm through transportation and
packing plants? The goal will be to develop cost-effective, practical ways
to reduce disease risks throughout the meat production chain.
Dr. Troutt earned a veterinary degree and practiced in Pennsylvania
before completing additional studies at Purdue University and the University
of Missouri-Columbia (Ph.D. in comparative pathology). From there he was
department head at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
helped found Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine,
and served as director of the Veterinary Medicine Teaching and Research
Center at the University of California-Davis for two years before joining
Former VCM Head Shifts Focus to Research
When Dr. H. Fred Troutt stepped down last year after 10 years as head
of the Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine, he could look back with
satisfaction on many accomplishments he helped bring into being. But he’s
not content to look back for long. He’s already focusing his formidable
talent and energy on making Illinois a leader in public health research.
Progress in the Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital under his tenure
was the more remarkable given the bleak fiscal outlook when he came aboard.
The hospital was almost a million dollars in debt, and the campus was putting
an end to deficit spending. Every major expenditure required campus approval.
“I saw my goal as establishing a stable financial basis on which faculty
could build their goals. I wanted to help bring to talented people the
resources that would allow them to excel,” he says. Throughout a period
of campus cutbacks, Dr. Troutt steered the department into a position of
being able to afford improvements and new programs drawing on self-generated
Among the goals that he is most proud of helping to achieve during his
years overseeing the hospital are creation of an extraordinary intensive
care unit in the Small Animal Clinic, a very contemporary oncology program,
modernized anesthesia and monitoring equipment, and a state-of-the-art
“Administering a department is like conducting an orchestra,” observes
Dr. Troutt. “You have a group of tremendously talented individuals and
you try to achieve harmony among them, because each part affects the whole.
By establishing excellent imaging capabilities, the hospital facilitated
growth in oncology and cardiology.”
The clinical faculty are among the best in the nation, according to
Dr. Troutt, not only in their clinical skills, but also as evidenced by
their research productivity, contributions to organized veterinary medicine,
voluminous publications, and teaching both in the professional degree program
and in continuing education.
As department head, Dr. Troutt gave careful attention to the hospital’s
teaching mission. “The essence of veterinary medicine education is to provide
the very best clinical exposure we can,” he says.
His concern about providing a well-rounded clinical experience for fourth-year
students led to creation of the Food Animal Production Medicine Consortium.
Initially funded through the Pew Foundation, this program linked six veterinary
institutions across the country, each providing students exposure to a
different aspect of the field. For example, Illinois students traveled
to California and Florida to gain dairy and beef herd experience, while
students from other institutions benefited from the swine medicine expertise
The consortium also provided a basis for Dr. Troutt’s food safety research.
With collaborators at consortium institutions and funds from the Food Safety
and Inspection Service, he spearheaded investigations into the prevalence
and spread of Salmonella in culled dairy cows. (See story on page 5.)
Today his focus has expanded from animal health to public health and
protecting human resources. In collaboration with consortium institutions
he’d like to start a graduate degree program for veterinarians and agribusiness
majors that will integrate the study of pre- and post-harvest food safety.
He can foresee building a food safety coalition at Illinois, drawing faculty
experts in agriculture and medicine from other colleges on this campus.
Ultimately he wants to integrate public health more meaningfully into
the DVM curriculum. A strong research program in this area will help provide
veterinary students with exposure to outbreak surveillance, field epidemiology,
problem-solving, and other food safety issues.
A Broad Menu of Oncology Research
"Soup to nuts” is how Dr. Barbara Kitchell, veterinary clinical medicine,
describes the oncology services available at the Cancer Care Clinic. The
Small Animal Clin-ic’s oncology unit, headed by Dr. Kitchell and surgeon
Dr. Nicole Ehrhart, bridges the great divide between the surgery and medicine
services by holding joint rounds and allowing fourth-year students to follow
patients throughout the treatment course in either service.
to nuts” is equally descriptive of Dr. Kitchell’s research. Her work
at both the cellular and the clinical levels is yielding important information
for human oncology while it advances veterinary care. For many forms
of cancer, mice and other rodents are not appropriate clinical research
models, but dogs are. Cancer clinic patients, with the owners’ consent,
provide a pool of spontaneously occurring tumors for testing new therapies
beneficial to humans and animals.
At the molecular level, Dr. Kitchell’s lab has explored whether activity
of an enzyme called telomerase in tumor cells of dogs and cats is an indicator
of malignancy. At both ends of all chromosomes are long stretches of TTAGGG
repeats, called telomeres. These regions protect the integrity of the coding
DNA by shielding it from degradation and recombination. In most normal
cells the telomeres erode after a finite number of cell divisions and the
cell permanently loses the ability to divide. Telomerase lengthens the
telomeres, extends the cell’s capacity to replicate, and renders the cell
It appears that telomerase plays an important role in the malignant
transformation of cells. A next step is to find ways to block telomerase
activity and to see whether that results in an effective cancer treatment
for dogs—and people.
In clinical studies, Dr. Kitchell is working with a time-release chemotherapy
in gel form. The reposital gel is injected directly into an inoperable
tumor. Because the gel stays in the tumor, doses at 10,000 times the level
of conventionally administered chemotherapy are possible without systemic
side effects. Data gathered on the animal patients at the Cancer Care Clinic
will provide “proof of principle” support for human use of the gel, which
is on a fast-track for FDA approval.
Dr. Kitchell earned a veterinary degree from Purdue University and did
additional training at the University of Minnesota and UC-Davis. She left
a cancer referral practice in Berkeley, California, to complete a combined
Ph.D./postdoctoral fellowship in cancer biology at Stanford Medical School.
Her Ph.D. degree was awarded by the UC- Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
in 1994, the year she joined the College faculty.