ORONO— University of Maine animal and veterinary science researchers are receiving nearly $500,000 to establish a unique research, testing and education center that promises to substantially advance the diagnosis, treatment and understanding of particularly problematic animal diseases.
The project, funded by a $497,392 Maine Technology Asset Fund grant, will enable field-testing to establish credibility for Maine biomedical companies to commercialize newly developed, inexpensive diagnostic kits. The first diagnostic kit to be field tested is one that detects the bacteria Streptoccoccus equi, the cause of equine “strangles,” within hours as opposed to days for conventional strangles culture.
Development of the new field test kits represents a revolutionary advancement in combating the highly contagious and sometimes fatal disease, according to principal investigator Robert Causey, a veterinarian and associate professor in the UMaine Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences.
Once researchers collect enough data in pilot testing to establish reliability and effectiveness of the field test kits, the kits can be manufactured for sale and distribution throughout Maine, the nation and the world, Causey says.
“There is no doubt that the market for this is potentially global,” he says. “Wherever there are horses, there is this disease. No one has ever tried to do this before. This puts Maine right in the front of strangles research.”
Kits being developed for market by Maine Biotechnology Services (MBS) in Portland have an antibody on a membrane that changes color when exposed to a strangles protein. They have proven successful in preliminary trials, Causey says. The grant will enable a large-scale expansion of the test kit trials.
“The purpose of the funding is to strengthen the infrastructure in Maine with the purpose of boosting the economy and bring new jobs to Maine,” Causey says. “The way we’re approaching this is two-fold. One is to strengthen Maine’s biotechnology sector, especially small, highly innovative companies, and the other is to strengthen the agricultural economy through lessening the impact of disease.”
The project entails, in the next year, renovations at the UMaine J.F. Witter Teaching and Research Center to create an animal handling area for disease diagnosis, an equine isolation area, and a technology transfer center classroom with video-endoscopy equipment. The facility will be used for testing and training faculty, Maine veterinarians and students from both UMaine and from the Tufts University veterinary medicine school. The grant also will provide approximately seven field endoscopes for use by Maine veterinarians at farms and stables around the state.
The endoscopes will be used to examine and take cultures from the guttural pouches, small sacs in the equine Eustachian tube where the disease settles, and to administer topical treatments in guttural pouches of infected horses.
The project also will establish a statewide strangles surveillance program to increase protection of Maine’s 35,000 horses. Maine’s equine industry is estimated to have an economic impact of about $364 million, according to the Maine Farm Bureau.
“If we are able to detect one hundred carriers, this represents a potential benefit to the Maine equine industry of between $100,000 and $400,000,” Causey says. “Such savings translate into farm jobs, and entire farms, saved.”
Nationally, quicker diagnosis and timely animal isolation could save the equine industry millions of dollars if the new diagnostic protocols are effective in preventing strangles in even 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 10 million horses, he says. The sales potential could be worth $3.5 million, according to Causey, if only 1 percent of the nation’s horses are tested each year.
Strangles in horses, which is similar to strep throat in people, is a debilitating, discomforting disease that results in serious complications in 20 percent of cases and is fatal in 8 percent. Carriers often do not show symptoms, which leads to undetected infection through water troughs, fences, tack, feeding buckets, farm tools and direct horse-to-horse contact.
“In uncomplicated cases, the disease quickly infects most susceptible animals in a facility, leading to cessation of riding or training activities for a month or longer,” Causey says in his successful grant application. “The economic impact of an outbreak can be devastating to a commercial equine facility.”
Causey’s research team includes veterinarian Anne Lichtenwalner, director of UMaine’s Animal Health Laboratory, James Weber, associate professor in animal sciences, and colleagues at Tufts University veterinary school and the Gluck Equine Research Center at the University of Kentucky.
With additional new antibodies developed by MBS, the test kits could be used to more quickly detect and diagnose other equine diseases, according to Causey.
It is important to Causey that students will be involved in the project at all levels, from caring for horses to working in labs and with endoscopy.
“From animal agriculture to biochemistry and the biomedical sciences, I think it’s all there,” he says. “The students here get exposure with large animals, and that is becoming less and less common at universities around the country. The Witter Center is helping to produce large animal veterinarians, many of whom will return to the state and that’s good for Maine agriculture, especially with a shortage of large animal veterinarians.
Contact: Robert Causey, (207) 581-2782
Source: University of Maine