Why I
Joined GGCP

I grew up in rural northern California with numerous pets both large and small, so becoming a veterinarian was always on my short list of possible professions. When I began veterinary school at UC Davis in 1997, I was interested in becoming an equine practitioner, although the possibility of pursuing specialization or graduate studies, as well as teaching, was always in the back of my mind. After graduating from veterinary school in 2001, I completed an internship at Humphrey, Giacopuzzi, and Associates Equine Hospital near Camarillo, California. I then decided that I was interested in teaching at a veterinary school, which would require further training in a specialized area of veterinary medicine and a PhD. In practice, I was most intrigued by cases involving internal medicine and infectious disease, so I accordingly chose to pursue board certification in large animal internal medicine and graduate work involving viral respiratory disease in horses.

Having determined that I was interested in equine infectious disease, the GGCP, with its focus on disease processes and biomedical research, was a good choice for me. The group includes faculty from both the School of Medicine and the School of Veterinary Medicine, providing an enormous breadth of expertise in disciplines ranging from microbiology to genetics. My DVM degree has provided a good base for me to gain new perspectives on disease pathogenesis by interacting with basic scientists as well as doctors and veterinarians with more clinical interests. In developing my research projects, I have found working with so many enthusiastic, collaborative investigators who possess such specialized, cutting-edge knowledge of a vast array of subjects invaluable.

I work in the Equine Viral Disease Laboratory directed by Jim MacLachlan with funding by the Edwin J. Gregson Memorial Fellowship in Equine Studies. My research concentrates on the epidemiology and biology of gammaherpesviruses in horses. Horses are commonly infected with two subfamilies of herpesviruses: alpha and gamma. Herpesviruses establish latent infections in their hosts, so the presence of virus is not always associated with disease. The alphaherpesviruses are known to cause epidemics of respiratory disease and abortion in susceptible horses. However, the linkage of gammaherpesviruses with disease in horses is not well described. There are two types of equine gammaherpesviruses recognized: EHV-2 and EHV-5. These viruses are closely related to Epstein-Barr virus, which causes infectious mononucleosis in humans. The gammaherpesviruses of horses and Epstein-Barr virus share many characteristics, including a high prevalence of infection in their respective populations and propensity to infect lymphoid tissue.

In my research, I use polymerase chain reaction and isolation on cell culture to detect herpesviruses from nasal swabs and peripheral blood mononuclear cells of different cohorts of horses. I also have done work sequencing a glycoprotein gene of various strains of EHV-2 and EHV-5 to further describe their epidemiology through molecular phylogenetics. My upcoming research will focus on using in vitro systems to investigate the immune response of horses to gammaherpesviruses.

Electron micrograph (167,000X) of EHV-5.

Collection of a nasopharyngeal swab from
a thoroughbred racehorse.