March 30, 2007

Three cutting-edge horse research projects have been awarded nearly $NZ500,000 in grants from a Canadian research fund.

The $NZ498,000 given by the Heather Ryan and L. David Dubé Veterinary Health and Research Fund will be used by scientists based at the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) to investigate equine endotoxemia, neonatal Rhodococcus equi pneumonia, and genetic ocular disorders.

The research will be conducted by multi-disciplinary teams of scientists, and the university will involve other research institutions across North America, said Dr Norman Rawlings, the veterinary college’s associate dean of research.

“Each collaborative team brings a great deal of clinical and laboratory expertise to the table, and we’re very excited about their potential for making real, concrete progress in overcoming these longstanding issues in horse health.”

The three prominent Canadian veterinary scientists who assessed the grant proposals considered the scientific merit of each project, the collective expertise of each research team, and the potential impact for each project to improve horse health care in Canada and around the world.

The equine health issues to be investigated are:

* Equine endotoxemia: A research team will receive money for the next three years to investigate the use of novel nanomedicines to treat endotoxemia, a complicating factor in many equine diseases and a major cause of death in horses. The main investigator is Dr Baljit Singh, a professor in WCVM’s Department of Veterinary Biomedical Sciences and a leading researcher in the biology of inflammation and the role of pulmonary intravascular macrophages (PIMs) in endotoxemia. Singh and his team members plan to use new, molecular-based medicines to target and destroy PIMs � critical promoters of endotoxin-induced tissue damage.

* Rhodococcus equi pneumonia in foals: Scientists will receive money for the next three years to gain a better understanding of foals’ immune response and susceptibility to this infectious disease. Team leader Dr Hugh Townsend is a professor in WCVM’s Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences and programme manager of the Vaccine Development Group at the Vaccine Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO). The team’s work will enhance the understanding of foals’ innate and adaptive immune responses, and the disease process of R. equi pneumonia. The ultimate goal is to develop new vaccine strategies for young foals.

* Genetic ocular disorders: A research team will receive funding for two years to identify the genetic mutations that induce congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB) in the Appaloosa breed and anterior segment dysgenesis (ASD) in the Rocky Mountain horse breed. Dr Bruce Grahn, a professor of veterinary ophthalmology in WCVM’s Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, leads the diverse research team that includes specialists in ophthalmology, ocular biochemistry, molecular genetics and phenotype research. The team’s investigations will identify the mutations responsible for the ocular conditions, inheritance patterns, the links to coat colour, and the pathogenesis of each disorder.

WCVM is a Canadian centre for veterinary education, expertise and research. It is located on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Nearly 400 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled at the college.

These are the first research projects to receive financial support from the new research fund that was created in August 2006 when the Heather Ryan and L. David Dubé Foundation contributed $NZ1.3 million to WCVM’s equine and companion animal health programmes.

Based on the donors’ wishes, the college will use $NZ911,000 of the contribution toward large-scale, WCVM-based equine research projects over the next five years.