CRWAD recognizes research, researchers

Some 500 people attended the 90th annual meeting of the Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases, Dec. 6-8, 2009, in Chicago.

The conference was dedicated to Dr. Norman F. Cheville of Ames, Iowa, dean emeritus of the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine.

After graduating from the Iowa State veterinary college in 1959, Dr. Cheville spent time working at the Army Biological Laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., as a member of the Army Veterinary Corps. He later moved to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Animal Disease Center, where he served as chief of pathology research from 1964-1989. As chief of the Brucellosis Research Unit from 1989-1995, he led a team that developed a vaccine for bovine brucellosis. He became chair of veterinary pathology at Iowa State in 1995 and served as dean from 2000-2004.

Dr. Cheville has been president of CRWAD and the American College of Veterinary Pathologists and editor of the journal Veterinary Pathology. He has authored seven books and contributed to several National Academies studies.

Life membership in CRWAD was awarded to Dr. Alexander A. Ardans, Davis, Calif.; Dr. Samuel K. Maheswaran, St. Paul, Minn.; Dr. Charles W. Purdy, Bushland, Texas; Donald C. Robertson, PhD, Manhattan, Kan.; and Dr. David W. Hird, Davis, Calif.

Officers of CRWAD for 2010 are Dr. Eileen L. Thacker, Beltsville, Md., president; Dr. Laura Hungerford, Baltimore, Md., vice president; and Robert P. Ellis, PhD, Fort Collins, Colo., executive director.

AVEPM awards

The Association for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine named Dr. Hollis N. Erb as recipient of the 2009 Calvin W. Schwabe Award. She is a professor of epidemiology at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, where she has been a faculty member since 1979.  

Dr. Erb earned her DVM degree from the University of California-Davis in 1974. Later she joined the faculty at Cornell's veterinary college and served as section chief for epidemiology in the Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences for nine years. From 1998-2008, she was editor-in-chief of Preventive Veterinary Medicine, and currently she serves as the journal's senior associate editor. She is a past president of the AVEPM.

Recipients of the AVEPM student awards were as follows: Epidemiology and Animal Health Economics category, oral—Alison E. Mather, University of Glasgow, for "Antimicrobial resistance surveillance systems and the detection of new or emerging resistances," and Chuck C. Dodd, Kansas State University, for "Prevalence and persistence of Salmonella within pens of feedlot cattle." Food and Environmental Safety category, oral—Melanie J. Abley, The Ohio State University, for "Genotyping and phenotyping of Campylobacter coli in pigs from farm to fork." Poster—L.L. Settle, Virginia Tech University, for "Expression and purification of the bacteriophage Felix O1 endolysin."

The Mark Gerhart Memorial Award was presented by the AVEPM to Keri Norman of Texas A&M University for "Varied prevalence of Clostridium difficile in an integrated swine operation."  

AAVI awards

The American Association of Veterinary Immunologists presented the Distinguished Veterinary Immunologist Award to D. Mark Estes, PhD, of Galveston, Texas. Dr. Estes is a professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where his laboratory focuses on immunoregulatory mechanisms in infection and cancer. He also has been director of the Program for Prevention of Animal Infectious Diseases at the University of Missouri, a program that identifies vaccine targets for respiratory and reproductive diseases of cattle and swine.

Recipients of the AAVI student awards were as follows: First place, oral—G.A. Contreras, Michigan State University, for "Plasma fatty acid profiles influence phospholipid fatty acid composition of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in periparturient dairy cows." Second place, oral—K.S. Chattha, University of Guelph, for "Age-dependent variation in the expression of CD21, CD32, and mIgM in the lymphoid tissues of calves." Third place, oral—M.A. Firth, University of Guelph, for "Expression profiles of bovine neonatal B cells determined by quantitative multiplex analysis." First place, poster—H. Vu, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, for "Analysis of the aberrant immune response induced by a PRRSV type 2 isolate naturally lacking glycan residues in two envelope glycoproteins." Second place, poster—E.A. Smith, Virginia Tech University, for "A porcine model of polymicrobial respiratory infections with swine influenza and Staphylococcus aureus." Third place, poster—X.S. Revelo, University of Missouri, for "In vitro dose effects of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide on the function of neutrophils isolated from blood of cows in midlactation."

ACVM awards

The American College of Veterinary Microbiologists selected Dr. James A. Roth of Ames, Iowa, as the Distinguished Veterinary Microbiologist for 2009. Dr. Roth is a professor at the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine. He also is director of the Center for Food Security and Public Health at ISU and executive director of the Institute for International Cooperation in Animal Biologics. From 2004-2008, he was ACVM president.

The ACVM student awards were presented to the following recipients: Don Kahn Award—Yun Young Go, University of Kentucky, for "Major and minor envelope proteins of equine arteritis virus determine tropism for peripheral blood mononuclear cells." In vitro category—L. Linke, Colorado State University, "An alternative to the avian influenza vaccine: Preliminary assessment of small interfering RNAs targeting viral and avian genes associated with avian influenza infection." Molecular category—D. Gangaiah, The Ohio State University, for "Role of polyphosphate kinase 2 in Campylobacter jejuni stress responses, host colonization, and pathogenesis." In vivo category—A.M. Quintana, Colorado State University, for "Comparison of the pathogenicity of equine and canine H3N8 influenza virus in ponies." Poster—Varun Dwivedi, The Ohio State University, for "Steps towards development of a novel mucosal vaccine to PRRSV."

Other awards

The Society for Tropical Veterinary Medicine student award was presented to Ryan T. Stoffel, University of Missouri, for "Utilization of real time PCR for detection of Ehrlichia chaffeensis in blood, tissue, and tick samples from experimentally infected dogs."

The American Association of Veterinary Parasitologists student award was presented to Jennifer McClure, University of Missouri, for "The etiology of severe acute CME."

The NC-1041 Enteric Diseases (North Central Committee for Research on Enteric Diseases of Swine and Cattle) student awards were presented to the following recipients: Oral—Smriti Shringi, Washington State University, for "Differential virulence of enterohemorrhagic E coli O157:H7 shiga toxin-encoding bacteriophage insertion site genotypes," and Crystal Brillhart, University of Arizona, for "Salmonella infection of oysters served on the half-shell." Poster—X. Zeng, University of Tennessee, for "Antigenic, functional, and immunogenic analyses of ferric enterobactin receptor CfrA in Campylobacter."

The Biosafety and Biosecurity Awards, sponsored by the Animal Health Institute, were presented to the following students: First place—C.K. Irwin, Iowa State University, for "Advising biosecurity policy: an example using a systematic review of the persistence of influenza in the environment." Second place—Seth R. Baker, University of Minnesota, for "A pilot study to investigate the seroprevalence of production-limiting swine pathogens in North American feral pig populations." Poster—Greg Peterson, Kansas State University, for "Diagnostic microarray for human and animal bacterial diseases."