Points of Distinction: College of Veterinary Medicine

Research

  • The MSU College of Veterinary Medicine’s Pulmonary Laboratory is one of the few labs in the world to study lung and upper airway function in large domestic animals and has garnered an international reputation for its pioneering studies. Award-winning respiratory research by college faculty members includes genetic susceptibility of animals and people to allergic asthma; inhalation toxicology, air pollution, and asthma; and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
  • The Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory in the College of Veterinary Medicine developed the first vaccine for Marek’s disease, a leukemia-like ailment of poultry.
  • Procedures developed in the college’s Laboratory of Comparative Orthopaedic Research (LCOR) are used throughout the world to treat sports injuries in both people and animals.
  • Affirming the interrelatedness of veterinary and human medicine, Steven Arnoczky, LCOR director and a veterinarian, has twice won the most prestigious award for human sports medicine from the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM). He and his laboratory colleagues have won five additional research awards in other categories from the AOSSM, in addition to the most prestigious award for orthopaedic research from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
  • MSU College of Veterinary Medicine researchers are investigating at least 40 different genetic disorders in a wide variety of species, and in more than half of them, they have identified the underlying mutation and developed a carrier test for it. Simon Petersen-Jones is now optimizing retinal gene therapy treatment that restores vision to dogs with a mutation in the RPE65 gene, and treatment is currently in clinical trials to restore vision in people with mutations in the same gene.
  • Lorraine Sordillo, holder of the Meadow Brook Chair in Farm Animal Health and Well-being, received the 2008 Distinguished Veterinary Immunologist Award from the American Association of Veterinary Immunologists. The award honored her research, which focuses on developing solutions to control mastitis in dairy cattle by understanding basic mammary gland physiology and immunology. Her growing understanding of these processes in animals also provides insight into atherosclerosis and breast cancer in humans.
  • Wade O. Brinker, one of the foremost veterinary surgeons and innovators in the nation, was a member of the College of Veterinary Medicine faculty from 1939 to 1978, except for a five-year stint in the Army Veterinary Corps. His work in developing surgical approaches, orthopedic devices, treatment of fractures, and methods for storing and grating bones had a huge impact on both veterinary and human medicine.
  • Mahdi Saeed, professor of epidemiology and infectious disease in the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Human Medicine, has developed a working vaccine for the Enterotoxigenic strain of E. coli, which kills two million to three million children each year in the developing world and causes sickness and death for newborn animals, such as calves and piglets.

Teaching

  • The college has attained national recognition for its leadership in programs for the encouragement of underrepresented groups at the preprofessional, professional, and advanced studies levels.
  • The multidisciplinary Center for Integrative Toxicology, which the College of Veterinary Medicine administers, builds upon MSU’s recognized research strength on the health and environmental effects of pollutants. This unit has more than 50 affiliated faculty members who are distinguished in a wide range of scientific disciplines.
  • A multidisciplinary doctoral program in environmental toxicology has been supported by a training grant from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences since 1989. Graduates of the program number more than 150 and can be found in academic, industry, and governmental positions. 
  • The Training Center for Dairy Professionals is an unusual public-private partnership involving MSU, Green Meadow Farms, and corporate sponsors that aims to address a shortage of large-animal veterinarians and to prepare such veterinarians with knowledge of the management, business, and personnel aspects of large dairy farms, as well as medical and biological aspects of cow health. 
  • The College of Veterinary Medicine has the longest clinical training phase of any veterinary curriculum in North America, providing students with greater clinical experience and the ability to increase their focus on a particular clinical area.

Service

  • With 24,000 patient visits annually, the Veterinary Teaching Hospital has one of the largest clinical and diagnostic caseloads in North America, considerably enhancing educational and research opportunities. 
  • The Veterinary Teaching Hospital was one of the first four institutions in the country to offer a cementless elbow prosthesis for the treatment of intractable canine elbow arthritis.
  • The Veterinary Teaching Hospital has made a major commitment to provide minimally invasive therapeutics for small and large animals. One part of this initiative is interventional radiology (IR), a subspecialty of radiology in which advanced imaging techniques including ultrasound, fluoroscopy (continuous X-ray), computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging are used to guide the delivery of materials for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. MSU’s program is one of only two formal IR services in the country.
  • MSU’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital has six emergency and critical care specialists—more than anywhere else in the United States.
  • The first open-heart surgery on a dog, using a homemade heart-lung machine, was performed at MSU in the 1960s by George Eyster, who virtually invented veterinary cardiology surgery with James Buchanan, an MSU graduate. MSU continues to have one of the strongest veterinary cardiology practices in the country.
  • The Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health, established in the 1970s in the wake of Michigan’s PBB disaster, has grown from just over 9,700 submissions when it first opened to about 185,000 submissions and 1.5 million diagnostic tests per year. 
  • In recognition of its outstanding commitment to improving faculty instruction and client communication, the College of Veterinary Medicine received the Institute for Healthcare Communication Program Partner Award for 2008. So far, the college has provided training in communication skills to 38 faculty and staff—more than any other school in North America.