Hello Vet Med! - University Of Illinoispublish.illinois.edu › illiniscavma › files › 2013 › 02 › T-times-Fall-2015.… · Hello Vet Med! We all have worked ... puppies,

Hello Vet Med!

We all have worked really hard this semester and will be able to enjoy Winter Break in just

a few days! Hang tight! :)

First Years are almost done with their clinical rotations and are ready to go back to

classrooms to learn more. Second Years learned a great deal of pathology and will put their

knowledge to practice after Winter Break going into their second year of rotations.

Third Years are done with the first round of junior surgeries and are ONE quarter away

from receiving white coats!!! Fourth Years are working hard on clinics and rocking the

NAVLE exam.

Good luck on Final exams!

You will do great!

Enjoy your Winter Break & remember

there are a lot of things to look forward to

in 2016! :)

Inside this issue:

What is ISCAVMA? 2-3

Vet Med News 4-5

Upcoming Events 6-7

Creative Corner 8-9

Quotable Quotes 10

Editor’s Note 11

2

Do you still find yourself wondering: “What is ISCAVMA?” Ask no more!

Here is a brief summary:

ISCAVMA is our school’s student chapter of the AVMA. Each veterinary school has their own student

chapter that functions under the Student AVMA (SAVMA), which consists of an Executive Board and a

House of Delegates (HOD) composed of two representatives from each member chapter (including our own). The formation of a national organization of veterinary students has enabled what were once isolated

student chapters to function effectively as a single unit on the national scene.

The Student AVMA coordinates student chapter functions, promotes the exchange of ideas and

information among students, and represents its members in matters that concern them, both as students

and as future veterinarians.

For more information on SAVMA, please visit https://www.avma.org/About/SAVMA/Pages/default.aspx

For more information on ISCAVMA, please visit http://vetmed.illinois.edu/iscavma/

Benefits of ISCAVMA membership:

• Eligible to receive various scholarships

• Opportunities to attend professional lectures

• AVMA career center access: provides job listings that match your resume and allows interested

employers to search posted resumes

• Opportunity to attend the Annual Student AVMA (SAVMA) Symposium

2016 Symposium hosted at Iowa State University (March 17-19)

To register, go to http://www.savmasymposium2016.com/#!register/ktsqu

Illinois Student Chapter of the American

Veterinary Medical Association

(ISCAVMA)

3

• Automatic enrollment in the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) upon graduation at no

cost and two years of reduced membership rates

• Student AVMA Member reduced subscription rates to the Journal of the AVMA (JAVMA) and the

American Journal of Veterinary Research (AJVR)

• Free subscriptions to the Vet Gazette: the official online journal of SAVMA (they also accept

submissions of your art, poems, cases and abstracts and you can win some $$$!)

http://www.thevetgazette.com/

• Each AVMA affiliated and accredited veterinary schools in the United States may elect two delegates to

represent their school at the bi-annual House of Delegates proceedings held at SAVMA Symposiums and

AVMA Conventions. Currently, this House of Delegates represents 33 veterinary schools and over

14,000 veterinary students. Your Illinois SAVMA delegates are Matt Holland (VM3)

[[email protected]] and Maggie Bland (VM2) [[email protected]]

NOTE: If you are an ISCAVMA member, then you are also a SAVMA member!!

4

First puppies born by in vitro fertilization For the first time, a litter of puppies was born by in vitro fertilization,

thanks to work by Cornell University researchers.

The breakthrough, described in a study to be published online Dec. 9 in the journal Public

Library of Science ONE, opens the door for conserving endangered canid species, using gene-

editing technologies to eradicate heritable diseases in dogs and for study of genetic diseases.

Canines share more than 350 similar heritable disorders and traits with humans, almost twice the

number as any other species.

Nineteen embryos were transferred to the host female dog, who gave birth to seven healthy

puppies, two from a beagle mother and a cocker spaniel father, and five from two pairings of

beagle fathers and mothers.

"Since the mid-1970s, people have been trying to do this in a dog and have been unsuccessful,"

said Alex Travis, associate professor of reproductive biology in the Baker Institute for Animal

Health in Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine.

Jennifer Nagashima, a graduate student in Travis' lab and the first to enroll in the Joint Graduate

Training Program between the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and Cornell's

Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, is the paper's first author.

VET MED NEWS

5

For successful in vitro fertilization, researchers must fertilize a mature egg with a sperm in a lab,

to produce an embryo. They must then return the embryo into a host female at the right time in

her reproductive cycle.

The first challenge was to collect mature eggs from the female oviduct. The researchers first tried

to use eggs that were in the same stage of cell maturation as other animals, but since dogs'

reproductive cycles differ from other mammals, those eggs failed to fertilize. Through

experimentation, Nagashima and colleagues found if they left the egg in the oviduct one more

day, the eggs reached a stage where fertilization was greatly improved.

The second challenge was that the female tract prepares sperm for fertilization, requiring

researchers to simulate those conditions in the lab. Nagashima and Skylar Sylveste, found that by

adding magnesium to the cell culture, it properly prepared the sperm.

"We made those two changes, and now we achieve success in fertilization rates at 80 to 90

percent," Travis said.

The final challenge for the researchers was freezing the embryos. Travis and colleagues

delivered Klondike, the first puppy born from a frozen embryo in the Western Hemisphere in

2013. Freezing the embryos allowed the researchers to insert them into the recipient's oviducts

(called Fallopian tubes in humans) at the right time in her reproductive cycle, which occurs only

once or twice a year.

The findings have wide implications for wildlife conservation because, Travis said, "We can

freeze and bank sperm, and use it for artificial insemination. We can also freeze oocytes, but in

the absence of in vitro fertilization, we couldn't use them. Now we can use this technique to

conserve the genetics of endangered species."

In vitro fertilization allows conservationists to store semen and eggs and bring their genes back

into the gene pool in captive populations. In addition to endangered species, this can also be used

to preserve rare breeds of show and working dogs.

With new genome editing techniques, researchers may one day remove genetic diseases and

traits in an embryo, ridding dogs of heritable diseases. While selecting for desired traits,

inbreeding has also led to detrimental genetic baggage. Different breeds are predisposed to

different diseases; Golden retrievers are likely to develop lymphoma, while Dalmatians carry a

gene that predisposes them to blockage with urinary stones.

"With a combination of gene editing techniques and IVF, we can potentially prevent genetic

disease before it starts," Travis said.

Finally, since dogs and humans share so many diseases, dogs now offer a "powerful tool for

understanding the genetic basis of diseases," Travis said.

Co-authors include Nucharin Songsasen, a research scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute,

National Zoological Park. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Baker Institute for Animal

Health, Cornell's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and the Smithsonian Institution.

Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Cornell University. The original item was

written by Melissa Osgood.

6

UPCOMING EVENTS

SPRING 2016

The University of Illinois CVM Veterinary Business Management Association Chapter

Alumni Panel lunch lecture

Disability Ally Training (co-event with VOICE)

& many more

Disability Ally Training (co-event with VBMA)

Lunch Lectures:

◦ Micro aggressions on our campus

◦ Vets are the only vets: understanding the needs of veterans

TLC Corner

Triptych Socials

Wine & Cheese night out

Yoga

Low stress behavior lecture and lab

Feline necropsy lecture and lab (co-event with Pathology club)

Declawing lecture

Trip to Exotic Feline Rescue Center

Veterinary Students as One in Culture and Ethnicity

(VOICE)

Illinois Student Chapter of American Association

of Feline Practitioners (ISCAAFP)

7

Lameness lab in January with Dr. Gutierrez

Ophthalmology and theriogenology labs

Colic/intestinal surgery lab (co-event with Surgery Club)

● Small animal emergency medicine lunch lecture

● Small animal neurology wet lab

Illinois Student Chapter of American Association

of Equine Practitioners (ISCAAEP)

Student Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care

Society (SVECCS)

8

CREATIVE CORNER

Watercolor painting "Chief”

Alyssa Baratta, Class of 2017

9

Pastel drawing “Intensity”

Melissa Giese, Class of 2017

Starring “Waya”

Tiana Royer, Class of 2017

Jessica Huntington, Class of 2018

10

QUOTABLE QUOTES

QUOTABLE QUOTES

"I am going to try not to hurt

you on the test."

-Dr. Wilkins

"You have to be careful not to get too carried

away on the black & white TV." - Dr. Garrett

(about ultrasound)

"Does anyone else go to Walmart and stand and look at

the antifungals or it is just me?" - Dr. Hoyer

"You also have a little bit of an unborn fart

here, in the colon." - Dr. Whittington

"All you need in life is balance and a good

Chihuahua." - Dr. Rubin

"What is a dog?" – Anonymous

"Who is your best friend? The external anal

sphincter. Because you don’t want to be leaking

poop everywhere.” - Unknown

"People just want to sit on a couch, watch TV and

stroke their cockatoo.” – Dr. Welle

"Practice your urinary creep.” – Dr. Wilkins

11

EDITOR’S NOTE

Please remember to send all submissions to [email protected]

Thanks for reading!