{"id":4681,"date":"2019-05-03T10:18:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T14:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qa.vet.purdue.edu\/news\/?p=4681"},"modified":"2024-11-21T11:27:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T16:27:09","slug":"one-love-one-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/one-love-one-health.php","title":{"rendered":"One Love, One Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anonymous gift to Purdue Veterinary Medicine enhances possibilities for translational breakthroughs<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Sandy
Dr. Sandra Taylor treats a foal in the Large Animal Hospital’s neonatal unit of the Purdue University Veterinary Teaching Hospital<\/a>, while the foal’s mother looks on.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to a $3 million gift to the College of Veterinary\nMedicine from an anonymous donor, Purdue researchers will make headway in the\nfight against diseases that affect both animals and people. With the largest\nsingle donation to the College, the gentleman’s kindness furthers the mission\nof a veterinary \u201cOne Health\u201d philosophy linking the animal world with humanity\nand the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man and his wife, who had several cats but no children,\nwere long-time supporters of Priority 4 Paws, the College’s mobile surgery unit\nthat performs spay and neuter procedures for shelter animals awaiting adoption.\nThen he ran across a story about a Purdue Veterinary Medicine research project\nand learned more about the translational medicine research related to the\ntreatment of sepsis, even as his wife was dying from such a disease. Their\nshared legacy, even though unnamed, will undoubtedly save lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susceptible to Sepsis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Sandra Taylor, associate professor of large animal medicine,\nstudies the effects of sepsis in horses. A worldwide common cause of illness\nand death in humans and animals, sepsis, she says, is defined as \u201can\nexaggerated and overwhelming inflammatory response to infection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most often, it’s a bacterial infection. In fact, that’s the\ncase about 95% of the time. \u201cThe challenge is knocking down the inflammatory\nresponse that’s gone into overdrive,\u201d Dr. Taylor says. \u201cThe body overshoots\nwhen responding to infection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most cases, antimicrobial drugs, such as antibiotics, can\neffectively resolve an infection. But widespread inflammation could be severe\nenough to stop a heart from beating, or a lung from breathing. \u201cThe overwhelming\ninflammation is the problem,\u201d Dr. Taylor says. \u201cRight now, we don’t have a good\ntreatment for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horses are particularly susceptible to sepsis. In adult\nhorses, sepsis can accompany severe cases of pneumonia, colitis, or uterine\ninfection. If colostrum, or the mother’s first milk, is not ingested within\nhours of birth, a newborn foal could be subject to sepsis, as well. Full of\nprotective antibodies that help stop ingested bacteria from entering the blood\nstream, colostrum acts as a natural antimicrobial.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Taylor is currently testing various treatment options for\nsepsis in horses, including non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, vitamin\ncocktails, and stem cells. These investigations could translate to humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sandy
Dr. Sandra Taylor, associate professor of large animal medicine, researches the effects of sepsis in horses.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnimal models for studying human disease are critical for\nadvancing medical knowledge,\u201d Dr. Taylor says. \u201cMost breakthroughs in the\nmedical field are due, at least in part, to what was learned from animals in a\nresearch setting. The idea of translating what we learn in animals to humans is\ncritical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he learned more about the specifics of Dr. Taylor’s research in particular, with all its potential applicability to human cases, the donor felt motivated to make a $3 million difference. Tanya Finkbiner, chief development officer for the College of Veterinary Medicine, who worked with the donor on his gift, later reflected on his \u201cquiet\u201d donation. \u201cHuman medicine is touched by a veterinarian. Food production is non-existent without a veterinarian. The often ‘quiet’ partner in public health is the veterinarian,\u201d Tanya said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthering Discovery, Learning, and Engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as Tanya equates a quietly generous cat lover with the\nunderstated role of today’s veterinarian, Dr. Taylor personifies Purdue’s\nthree-fold mission of discovery, learning, and engagement as she passionately\npursues her research. \u201cAbout 50% of my appointment is clinical,\u201d she says. \u201cI\nsee patients that are referred to our Large Animal Hospital, 70% of which are\nhorses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though she also treats cattle, alpacas, llamas, goats, and\npigs, Dr. Taylor has a special love for equine-focused research. This became\nevident during her graduate school days while investigating an equine model for\nHIV. As a teacher, she hopes every Purdue veterinary student finds that same\npassion. \u201cI hope they find what they really love to do,\u201d she says. \u201cThey have\nso many options. They can pursue private practice and work with a variety of\nanimals, including small animals, large animals, exotics, or wildlife. Or they\ncan go into industry, public health, research, or academia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That diversity of work is what Dr. Taylor thrives on at\nPurdue, as do many of her faculty colleagues. Dr. Harm HogenEsch, associate\ndean for research and professor of immunopathology, helps faculty identify both\nfunding opportunities and areas that have funding potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. HogenEsch believes antimicrobial resistance is a good\nexample of the \u201cOne Health\u201d philosophy, which frankly has more than one\ndefinition. \u201cIt’s an umbrella term to emphasize that human health, animal health,\nand the environment are all interconnected. In order to address certain\nimportant problems in human health, you need to take into account animal\nhealth. And vice versa,\u201d says Dr. HogenEsch, who also noted that antimicrobial\nresistance is recognized by the World Health Organization as a huge threat to\npublic health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflecting on the College\u2019s impactful donation from the\nanonymous central Indiana resident, Dr. HogenEsch foresees a beneficial payoff\nfor both people and animals. That funding, when leveraged, could even lead to\nfederal funding for other investigations. \u201cThe gift allows us to enhance our\nresearch infrastructure,\u201d he says. \u201cIt’s a great benefit to our College.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to a $3 million gift to the College of Veterinary Medicine from an anonymous donor, Purdue researchers will make headway in the fight against diseases that affect both animals and people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,268,31,35,29,11,27],"tags":[94,121,173,95,238,92,93,196,597,51],"class_list":["post-4681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","category-giving","category-hospitals","category-one-health","category-our-people","category-research","category-services","tag-equine","tag-giving","tag-harm-hogenesch","tag-large-animal-hospital","tag-one-health","tag-sandra-taylor","tag-sepsis","tag-spring","tag-tanya-finkbiner","tag-vth"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4681"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25794,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681\/revisions\/25794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}