 Research News - College of Veterinary Medicine
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Dr. Teresa Morishita, Professor of Poultry Medicine and Food Safety, studies Campylobacter, a food-borne bacterial pathogen causing gastrointestinal illness in people. Her work focuses on the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance of this pathogen in both commercial and organic poultry in order to reduce its prevalence through effective on-farm reduction strategies. Reducing Campylobacter jejuni in poultry leads to less contamination in the processing plant and ultimately results in a safer product for consumers. Data gathered on antimicrobial resistance will allow poultry producers to monitor the impacts of drug usage in production medicine and prevent the development of resistant organisms. For more information about Dr. Morishita's other interests in research, see Dr. Morishita's web-site: http://www.westernu.edu/xp/edu/veterinary/tmorishita.xml
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Josep Rutllant-Labeaga, DVM, PhD joined the CVM faculty in 2003 as an Associate Professor. His overall goal in research has been to develop an understanding of sperm transport in female genitalia and events related to fertilization in domestic livestock species. Knowledge about mechanisms involved in successful sperm transport and fertilization may then be utilized to understand why fertilization failures occur and to solve unpredictable problems of subfertility and infertility. Also, this information is critical for the development of new contraceptive technologies and new approaches to provide accurate systems of estrus detection. In addition, a better knowledge of the required processes involved in sperm physiology, such as epididymal maturation and sperm capacitation, both necessary for fertilization, can help to answer unknown problems of infertility and to improve the methodology for male genome preservation. |
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Dr. Kristopher Irizarry joined the CVM faculty in 2006. He is an assistant professor specializing in bioinformatics, genetics and genomics. Dr. Irizarry's research is directed toward contributing to the development and use of genomic based diagnostic tools in veterinary medicine. This is of great importance because many animal diseases exhibit breed specific associations. Through the development of effective genetic diagnostics coupled with specific breeding strategies the prevalence of these phenotypes can be reduced in predisposed breeds. The results of improved breeding can have a tremendous impact on both the quality of life for the animals as well as the veterinary costs incurred by the owners. Specifically Dr. Irizarry focuses on integrating the cumulative effects of multiple genetic variations called single nucleotide polymorphisms onto the functional circuits encoded by the genome. These functional circuits, or signal transduction pathways, provide a template for assessing the phenotypic effects of genetic variation on cellular, tissue, organ and ultimately organism function. Because genomic data is very large and complex, his research employs high-throughput data mining techniques and parallel computing architectures to address genome-wide questions aimed at elucidating the genetic basis of disease susceptibility and progression. For more information about Dr. Irizarry's research see: www.westernu.edu/xp/edu/veterinary/kirizarry.xml |
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