Oath
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TEACH • HEAL • DISCOVER
FALL/WINTER 2016
Tracking Down Outbreaks page 2
Teaming Up for Nekot page 7
Turtle Partnership Turns 20 page 9
Avian Fellowship Creates Nest Egg page 10
Life-changing Impact Going Into the Wild to Save Rhinos page 3
FROM THE DEAN
New Plan, New College We have changed a lot in the past five years, and so has our world. Our new 2016 -2020 strategic plan blends past progress and experience with future needs and opportunities. The entire college community was engaged with developing this plan. We want to be clear and direct. We state our objective simply – “TO IMPROVE ANIMAL AND HUMAN HEALTH,” setting five long-term goals to achieve that objective: 1. Build an inclusive College community and a culture of pride and integrity 2. Deliver world-class education that produces highly successful veterinarians 3. Build research leadership and training in animal and human health 4. Deliver compassionate, state-of-the-art care in a dynamic educational environment 5. Strategically invest in targeted programmatic areas The plan includes strategies to accomplish these things over the next four years, and metrics to measure success. You can read the whole plan on our website. Above all, we have found that working together is always the most important strategy. To continue reading visit: cvm.ncsu.edu/ fromthedean D. Paul Lunn Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine NC State University
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THINK & DO
Extraordinary Leadership Allen Cannedy, director of diversity and multicultural affairs, was awarded the 2016 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine. “Tuskegee gave me the opportunity to do what I’ve done, and it will always be special to me,” says Cannedy, a 1994 graduate of Tuskegee. “I’m very grateful.” Cannedy continues to mentor and recruit students traditionally underrepresented in veterinary medicine. Jody Gookin, Department of Clinical Sciences professor, was named a FluoroScience Distinguished Professor in Veterinary Scholars Research. “I’m grateful for the recognition of my work and for the opportunity to inspire future clinicians to learn about and experience the value of research early in their careers,” says Gookin, a nationally recognized expert in gastroenterology. “I think that reflects well on the University and I’m proud to play a role in making it happen.”
Top-bottom: Allen Cannedy, Jody Gookin, Michael Stoskopf
Michael Stoskopf, professor of aquatics, wildlife and zoological medicine, was honored with the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians Lifetime Achievement Award. “It was important for me to express my gratitude to all who have been a part of my lifetime achievements and to recognize those still dedicated to improve the health of the planet and to make it a better place for wildlife of all kinds,” says Stoskopf. Stoskopf came to the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine after stints at the Memphis Zoo, the Maryland Zoo and the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Faculty and staff recognition news? Email CVMCommunications@ncsu.edu.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Tracking Down Outbreaks You’d hardly give it a second glance. The MiSeq System easily blends in with its surroundings in the lab of Siddhartha “Sid” Thakur, an associate professor of molecular epidemiology at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. But here, hundreds of isolated pathogens are undergoing whole genome sequencing and are fed into a sharable worldwide database. The goal: identifying the pathogen early and preventing it from spreading. It’s called GenomeTrakr. And the CVM is the only place you’ll find it in North Carolina.
easily accessible network, particularly helpful in quickly pinpointing the source of outbreaks. According to the FDA, the network has sequenced over 61,000 isolates, including some of the most common sources of foodborne illnesses — Salmonella, Listeria and E. Coli. Each year 48 million Americans get sick by consuming contaminated foods or beverages, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.
“Just like you and I have our unique fingerprints, pathogens have their own fingerprints. When the fingerprints match, that means we have a culprit.” ~ Sid Thakur
“Just like you and I have our unique fingerprints, pathogens have their own fingerprints,” says Thakur, who is also the associate director at NC State’s Comparative Medicine Institute and leads its Emerging and Infectious Diseases Research Program. “When the fingerprints match, that means we have a culprit.”
GeomeTrakr, developed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is the first network of labs using whole genome sequencing to identify pathogens. It consists of 37 labs in the United States and 17 outside of the country. Genome sequences are cataloged and shared through this
The effort to bring the GenomeTrakr program to the CVM started a year ago, as Thakur began meeting with Reagan Converse, the chief microbiologist at the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Food and Drug Protection Division.
The GenomeTrakr instrument is housed at the CVM, where samples will be sequenced. Converse’s department will work closely with CVM on experimental design, analysis and data transfer. Thakur aims to generate 400 and 600 sequences a year. “GenomeTrakr is working and its reach is massive,” says Thakur. “The proof is already in the pudding.” ~ Jordan Bartel/NC State Veterinary Medicine 2
EXTRAORDINARY PURPOSE
Into the Wild College of Veterinary Medicine researchers hope to help stem the tide of rhino poaching deaths
A few days before colleagues and close friends Anthony Blikslager and Mathew Gerard began research that could save hundreds of threatened rhinoceroses, Gerard saw one in the wild for the first time.
In June, he was in the game reserves surrounding Kruger National Park in South Africa. To Gerard, an anatomy professor at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), it was constantly rewarding, just being here. He and wife Dr. Wendy Simpson, also a veterinarian, had never had a safari experience.
The next day, he saw one that had been slaughtered.
Gerard saw the dead rhino on one of the safari drives. It was laying on its side under a tree, its eyes open, the front portion of its face hacked off by poachers. Its ears and the back of its head were also missing. The wounds were fresh and raw.
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The Perfect Team Gerard and Blikslager had never studied or worked with rhinos before but they ended up uniquely suited to a task almost two years in the making: mapping the paranasal sinus anatomy of the white rhinoceros, believed to be the first project of its kind.
“It’s incomprehensible to They planned me that someone, anyone, the trip to visit could go in and destroy Johan Marais, these animals in the way an equine and wildlife surgeon that it is happening.” at the University of Pretoria who ~ Mathew Gerard is dedicated to helping poached rhinos as part of the nonprofit Saving the Survivors, which he co-founded in 2012. Blikslager first visited the university in 2014 to continue a study on equine colic that had started at NC State. Soon, the conversation turned to rhinos.
BY THE END OF 2015, THE NUMBER OF AFRICAN RHINOS KILLED BY POACHERS HAD INCREASED FOR THE SIXTH YEAR IN A ROW, WITH AT LEAST 1,338 RHINOS SLAUGHTERED. LAST YEAR, AN ESTIMATED 1,175 RHINOS WERE POACHED IN SOUTH AFRICA.
“It’s incomprehensible to me that someone, anyone, could go in and destroy these animals in the way that it is happening,” Gerard says. “I’ll never understand that side of it.” In a few days Gerard and Blikslager would be meeting in Onderstepoort, near Pretoria, South Africa, to study these majestic animals quickly vanishing from the Earth because someone desires their horns. There was something specific that needed to be done to help these animals. It was something they could do.
“He said, ‘I’m really interested in wildlife, particularly rhinos and you probably don’t have any interest in that,’” says Blikslager, a professor of equine surgery and gastroenterology at the CVM. “So I said, ‘Why don’t you show me?’” What Marais showed Blikslager were the wounds he was left to deal with on poached rhinos his team rescued. But Marais wasn’t exactly sure of what he was looking at.
“Currently, we are losing more than 1,000 rhinos a year, and nobody knows how to treat these rhinos or knows the anatomy,” says Marais. Blikslager connected Marais with Gerard, an equine surgeon now focused on teaching anatomy. They communicated with Marais over Skype for 18 months before the June visit. They got to work right away on the trip sponsored by NC State. Over four days they faced the massive head of a cadaver rhino, dissecting, documenting and discussing the anatomy. When a rhino’s horns are hacked away — either by machete or axe or hand saw — the paranasal sinuses are always 4
exposed. Until Blikslager and Gerard’s research, no one had any idea what cavities they were looking at and how they were interrelated. What was needed was an accurate description of the trauma the sinuses sustain during horn removal, where the accumulated fluid drains to the nasal cavity and where, perhaps, surgeons could create new holes to help facilitate sinus drainage of blood or other fluid during long-term treatment.
“There are some sources that suggest that by 2024... there won’t be any more rhino left in the wild.” ~ Mathew Gerard
“The numbers in the wild are diminishing so quickly that there has to be efforts to keep alive any and all rhinos left,” says Gerard.
Marais agrees that Blikslager and Gerard’s research is already having an effect on how his team treats injured rhinos. “Just by touching the area where the horn was hacked off, the rhino would react violently,” says Marias. “So by using the CT software and working out where the infraorbital nerve exists, we got landmarks on the live animal. We then started blocking this nerve before working on the animals. It turned out to be very effective.” “My only complaint,” adds Marais, “was that Mat and Anthony were not here long enough.” Blikslager and Gerard’s lives have intertwined for more than two decades at NC State. Gerard arrived as a resident in equine surgery in 1994, the year Blikslager completed his surgery residency. Gerard says that from the day he started at the CVM, Blikslager has been a valued mentor. “This recent trip was two old mates getting a bit of time away,” says Gerard. It was also so much more, of course. According to Saving the Survivors, 1,338 rhinos were
At the Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital, they meticulously used a bandsaw to section the head and see the length and breadth of the sinuses, and used a blue dye to determine pathways between the spaces.
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“We thought it would be really important to find out where the sinus space opens,” says Blikslager. “And we were trying to ask questions like, ‘Do you ever see a problem with the sinus filling and not being able to drain?’” Gerard and Blikslager passed an endoscope through the nasal passage and into the newly discovered sinuses to confirm where they drained. They determined that treatment can include opening up areas of the sinus wall to reestablish drainage for an infected sinus. “Literally, before we started looking at this cadaver together, Dr. Marais didn’t know there was this hole coming out of that sinus space. None of us knew that,” says Gerard. “You could almost see a sense of relief in his face when we showed him the opening because he suddenly felt like, OK, at least I now know it’s this big space that gets filled up with blood but has a way to drain.”
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“ s c t t s When a rhino horn
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gets removed, a large section of their face gets hacked off. Chances of survival are poor. Medical illustration by Alice MacGregor Harvey/NC State Veterinary Medicine
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poached in 2015. Just six years ago, that number was 125. Since its founding, Saving the Survivors says it has saved more than 200 rhinos.
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY, THERE WERE 500,000 RHINOS IN AFRICA AND ASIA. TODAY THERE ARE JUST 29,000 IN THE WILD. MORE THAN 3,500 GREATER ONE-HORNED RHINOS, FEWER THAN 100 SUMATRAN RHINOS AND ABOUT 60 JAVAN RHINOS.
“There are some sources that suggest that by 2024 there won’t be any more rhino left in the wild,” says Gerard. “They will all be captive rhino at the current rate of poaching.” “To some degree it feels a little bit like you’re on the edge of such a massive problem. It’s like being on the edge of a giant chasm,” says Blikslager. “I think everybody wants to know that some place in the world there is a thing that’s called the wild, with wild animals in it. We just want to know that,” says Blikslager.
A Rhino Called Hope Toward the end of their trip, Blikslager and Gerard went into the wild to meet Hope (above). Hope has undergone several procedures to repair the damage to the top of her head, cleaved off by unidentified poachers. A white rhino living in an enclosure, Hope sports a swath of bandages and elastic bands, stapled into place at the top of her head.
Blikslager and Gerard’s work could help determine further treatment for Hope and the other Saving the Survivors rhinos. “We’re in this experience with this massive animal, touching her skin, looking at the skin on the rest of her body,” says Gerard. “You stop and look at yourself and think about what you’re doing. This is literally this massive wild animal in front of you. That was surreal in many respects.” During the course of this interview, the two went from saying they generally would like to go back to South Africa, possibly with CVM students, to saying it could likely happen in two years to definitely telling each other that they wanted to go back in a year — that they needed to go back. “It’s a privilege to be a part of helping them. That’s the way I look at it,” says Gerard. “If Marais called up and said, ‘Mat, I need you on a plane tomorrow and we want you out in South Africa for two years to help us work on these animals,’ I’d probably jump on the plane without thinking too hard.” ~ Jordan Bartel/NC State Veterinary Medicine The full version of this story is at cvm.ncsu.edu/rhino-discovery. 6
FROM THE HEART
Teaming Up for Nekot Nekot is a Staffordshire terrier who came to the NC State Veterinary Hospital when he was 7 months old with a serious heart problem. In fact, when Nekot first came to NC State, it was to the hospital’s emergency room. “We first saw Nekot through the ER service in April 2015 for a history of increased breathing rate, heart rate and exercise intolerance,” says cardiology resident Brent Aona. “He was diagnosed with a cardiac arrhythmia known as supraventricular tachycardia.
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“The reason for his fast heart rate was due to a congenital problem called an accessory pathway, where the electrical conduction in his heart has the normal pathway plus an extra pathway. This allows the electrical conduction in his heart to periodically go much faster than it normally would. While he was well-managed with medications, these medications can have side effects [particularly on the kidneys and electrolytes], they are expensive and they are more of a Band-Aid for the arrhythmia and congestive heart failure as opposed to fixing the underlying disease process.” In this case, fixing the problem is where the important role of teamwork comes into play. Yes, it’s true that we’re in Atlantic Coast Conference country, and when we think of teams, we most often think of the intense collegiate sports rivalries. But when it counts the most, even rivals can collaborate, as we’ll soon see. The “extra pathway” Aona mentions that was causing Nekot’s rapid heartbeat was actually caused by abnormal extra tissue. The preferred treatment for such conditions is ablation, a process that simply eliminates the excess tissue, resulting in a heart that can function normally. NC State had recently acquired the necessary equipment to perform heart ablation thanks to a generous grant, but had not used it yet. And that’s where a little help from our experienced friends from the world of human medicine came in handy. Bruce Keene, the attending veterinarian on the case, explains: “Through a research grant, the NC State cardiology service
DONATIONS IN SUPPORT OF THE VETERINARY HOSPITAL MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE OUR MEDICAL TEAM WITH THE ADVANCED EQUIPMENT AND DIAGNOSTICS REQUIRED TO TREAT ILLNESS AND INJURY FOR PETS LIKE NEKOT.
cvm.ncsu.edu/giving
had acquired the St. Jude EnSite electrophysiologic imaging system, a radiofrequency generator, and with the help of Salim Idriss and one of his colleagues, Christine Meliones, nurse practitioner, at the Duke pediatric cardiac electrophysiology service, the expertise needed to try to permanently correct Nekot’s heart rhythm abnormality. “After identifying the source of the rhythm disturbance … the team was able to successfully ablate the abnormal tissue, eliminating Nekot’s rhythm disturbance, and with it, the need for life-long medication and the risk of ongoing heart failure.” And there you have a textbook example of how the ability and willingness to work as a team results in world-class veterinary care. NC State’s in-house group of exceptional clinicians, supported by funding from a research grant and advanced technology, and the ability to call on the expertise of external partners when needed, results in the perfect outcome. Even when the partners are NC State and Duke.
~ Steve Volstad/NC State Veterinary Medicine 8
EXTRAORDINARY CARE
Turtle Rescue Partnership Turns 20
The NC State College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) and the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center (KBSTRRC) at Surf City, N.C. celebrated 20 years of partnering to preserve and protect sea turtle populations on Sept. 8 with a special release of five rehabilitated turtles on the coast of North Carolina as hundreds of onlookers cheered. It also marks the 11th year that fourth-year students from the CVM have had the opportunity to experience a clinical rotation in sea turtle rehabilitation and rescue. The official collaboration was established 20 years ago by the founder of the KBSTRRC, Jean Beasley, and CVM professor of aquatic, wildlife and zoological medicine Greg Lewbart, who began their collaboration informally in 1993 with a rescued sea turtle dubbed “Lucky.� The Beasley Center was founded by Beasley in memory of her daughter, Karen, who was a passionate advocate for the protection of sea turtles before she passed away at 29 in 1991. 9
Working closely with the Beasley Center is Craig Harms, CVM professor of aquatics, wildlife, and zoological medicine. Harms directs the Marine Health Program at the NC State Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST). Harms took over from Lewbart as the primary veterinarian working with the Beasley Center in 1999, becoming the first CVM faculty member to be located on the coast. Thanks to the efforts of Harms, Lewbart and others, the fourthyear student clinical rotation available to CVM students at CMAST is the only one of its kind in the world, says Lewbart, providing students with a rare opportunity to gain experience in the treatment of marine wildlife. From its modest beginnings, the partnership between the Beasley Center and the CVM has evolved spectacularly into a model of species preservation, education and research. ~ Steve Volstad/NC State Veterinary Medicine
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EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY
Degernes Endows Avian Fellowship
Retired Professor of Avian Medicine Laurie Degernes (left) and wife Julia Storm, retired Agromedicine Information Specialist from the NC State Department of Applied Ecology, during a recent visit to the CVM.
When Laurie Degernes was a student at the University of Minnesota, she probably would have been surprised to hear that when she retired after a long and distinguished career, she would be a professor of avian medicine at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) and that she would make a substantial contribution to the CVM to establish the Dr. Laurie Degernes Fellowship for Avian Medicine Education. There was no question about her intention of going into veterinary medicine when she was in college, her plan was to go into private practice treating dairy cattle and small animals. Even the best-laid plans can … well, you know the old saying. In 1985, Laurie started working at the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, which rehabilitates sick and injured wild raptors. As the center grew so did Laurie’s passion and expertise as staff veterinarian. In early 1990, she happened to meet a student from the CVM who mentioned that the college had an opening for a resident specializing in the treatment of birds. And that is how she ultimately became a veterinarian specializing in both wild and companion birds and, in 1993, an assistant professor. Veterinarians who specialize in avian and exotic species are not that common. They were even less so in the early ‘90s, and NC State became a go-to option for many students hoping to gain experience with birds, reptiles and small mammals.
Degernes was in on the ground floor of that development, as an educator, clinician and researcher, the latter with a focus on wildlife epidemiology. In time, she also earned a master’s degree in public health from the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill, and was involved in such projects as developing a plan to deal with a potential avian flu epidemic for special avian collections, such as at the North Carolina Zoo and the Carolina Raptor Center. She worked with these and other external partners on such projects as the preservation of rare and endangered species and developed numerous training opportunities for students to work with those birds. She even had the opportunity to travel to share her expertise globally at the Beijing Raptor Rescue Center, and to provide learning and cultural opportunities for students to study veterinary acupuncture. When she decided that it was time to retire from this full and rewarding career at a place she had come to love, Laurie wanted to do something to support NC State and its students to follow in her footsteps to develop expertise in the treatment of birds. That’s how the Dr. Laurie Degernes Fellowship for Avian Medicine Education came to be. ~ Steve Volstad/NC State Veterinary Medicine 10
NC State Veterinary Medicine NC Veterinary Medical Foundation 1060 William Moore Drive • Raleigh, NC 27607 Give Now: Use the giving envelope enclosed, (checks payable to “NCVMF”), or give online at cvm.ncsu.edu/giving. Contact Us: Giving Office: 919-513-6660 cvmfoundations@ncsu.edu The Oath is published by the NC State Veterinary Medicine Communications and Marketing office. Contact us at CVMCommunications@ncsu.edu
Protect & Serve ONE OF OUR FAVORITE NEW PATIENTS IS REED, A 3-YEAR-OLD NC STATE POLICE DOG. THANKS FOR KEEPING US SAFE, REED.
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