By Marilee Griffin

Dr. James W. Lloyd

James W. Lloyd, D.V.M., Ph.D., has been named dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida.

“I am confident that our internationally recognized veterinary college, hospitals and clinics will flourish under Dr. Lloyd’s leadership,” said David S. Guzick, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president for health affairs at UF and UF&Shands Health System president. “He brings a wealth of expertise to our team. I look forward to working with him in continuing our tradition of excellence as the state’s only college of veterinary medicine.”

Lloyd was chosen after a nationwide search led by co-chairs Teresa A. Dolan, D.D.S., M.P.H., a professor and dean of UF’s College of Dentistry, and John P. Hayes, Ph.D., a professor and dean for research at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

“Dr. Lloyd will make an outstanding addition to the leadership team at the University of Florida,” said Hayes. “I am particularly excited by his vision to position the College of Veterinary Medicine at the forefront of efforts to link health sciences, agricultural sciences and veterinary medicine to address some of the most important issues facing our society. He brings a tremendous set of skills to the table, and we are very excited that he will be joining us at the University of Florida.”

Lloyd will officially begin his new job in July, when he will become the college’s sixth permanent dean.

“I’m thrilled with the opportunity to lead the College of Veterinary Medicine at UF,” said Lloyd. “It’s an outstanding institution with a core of exceptional faculty, staff and students. Together with the leadership team, I look forward to working with both internal and external stakeholders to build on the college’s existing strengths in research, teaching and service and to expand the college’s recognition as a respected leader in academic veterinary medicine.”

The unique opportunity to collaborate with the Health Science Center and UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is exciting, Lloyd said. He’s also looking forward to active engagement with alumni and practitioners in the Florida Veterinary Medical Association, and to working closely with Florida’s diverse animal-owning public — including pet owners, horse owners and the livestock industries.

“We look forward to working with Dean Lloyd to grow the size, scope and diversity of these programs and bring ever greater visibility to the College,” said Jack Payne, Ph.D., senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources at IFAS. “IFAS is very proud of its partnership with the College of Veterinary Medicine in our joint research and Extension efforts, such as the Extension efforts in livestock, aquatic animal health, environmental toxicology, the Food Animal Reproduction and Medicine Service and the Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank.”

Lloyd most recently served as the associate dean for budget, planning and institutional research at Michigan State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. He maintained joint appointments as a professor in the departments of large animal clinical sciences and agricultural economics at MSU, and was an adjunct professor at MSU’s Eli Broad College of Business.

He earned a doctorate in veterinary medicine from MSU in 1981 and a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from MSU in 1989.

Lloyd has published more than 165 journal articles, technical reports, proceedings and book chapters. He has successfully secured grant funding for veterinary education and animal health projects, as well as for his research interests, which include non-technical behaviors that contribute to veterinarians’ success, markets for veterinary medical services and financial dimensions of veterinary medical education.

In addition, Lloyd has delivered more than 330 presentations and workshops nationally and internationally, including sessions on leadership development, teaching hospital management, curriculum, academic admissions and various scientific topics at 22 of the 28 U.S. colleges/schools of veterinary medicine.

During this time, he also taught extensively in both pre-clinical and clinical courses, with an emphasis on epidemiology, food safety, herd health management, production medicine, veterinary medical career development and veterinary practice management.

Lloyd is an active member of professional veterinary organizations, including the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Association of Bovine Practitioners and VetPartners. He served on the executive committee of the Michigan Veterinary Medical Association for four years and was its president in 2010.

“Dr. Lloyd’s experience as an agricultural economist, veterinary practitioner, educator and associate dean responsible for budget, planning and institutional research have prepared him well for the leadership position as dean,” said Dolan. “I have no doubt that he will work to develop an outstanding leadership team and advance the College of Veterinary Medicine to one of the top programs in the country.”

By Sarah Carey

Dr. Sarah Reuss and Dr. Jim Wellehan inspect the ear of a healthy horse. (Photo by Maria Farias)

A rare, potentially fatal species of parasite never before found in North America has been identified in a Florida horse.

University of Florida veterinarians identified the parasite, called Leishmania siamensis, in the summer of 2011. This particular species of parasite previously had been found only in Thailand and parts of Europe while other species of Leishmania have been found all over the world. No Leishmania infections of any species had been previously reported in a horse native to the United States.

The UF discovery raises awareness of how widespread the parasite is and suggests a need for watchfulness regarding potential transmission to humans, the researchers said.

“We now know the parasites that cause this disease also exist here in the U.S. and that we have some insect, presumably the sandfly, that is capable of transmitting the disease,” said Sarah Reuss, V.M.D., a clinical assistant professor of large animal medicine at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, who along with UF colleagues and a private practice clinical pathologist described the findings in the September issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Our findings raise several potential avenues of further investigation, including the prevalence of this disease in horses in the U.S., a better understanding of the sandfly life cycle and the potential of this leishmaniasis species to be transmitted from animals to humans.”

Leishmaniasis is a parasitic infection spread through the bites of infected sandflies. The disease shows up most commonly in two forms: cutaneous, which causes sores on the skin, is self-healing; and visceral, the most severe form, which affects the entire body and is almost always fatal if left untreated. After malaria, leishmaniasis is the leading parasitic cause of death in humans. The disease has been found in four continents and is considered to be endemic in 88 countries, including 16 developed nations, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO estimates the worldwide prevalence at 12 million cases, with about 350 million people at risk of infection and about 60,000 people dying from the disease each year. Leishmaniasis is rare in people in the U.S.

“It really hasn’t been a disease that has affected Americans, but there are really good data with climate change models that predict sandfly ranges will expand, making this disease much more of a threat because of global warming,” said co-author James Wellehan Jr., D.V.M., Ph.D., a veterinarian from the UF research team, who confirmed the presence of the disease in the Florida horse by analyzing the genes of the parasite.

The visceral form of leishmaniasis is endemic in foxhounds in the U.S, associated with a different species of Leishmania. But aside from some regional transmission in the Southwest, most of the cases of skin infection due to leishmaniasis in the U.S. are believed to have occurred in animals brought in from countries where the disease is common, or in people who had recently spent time in those countries.

“Thousands of people serving in the U.S. military have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with cutaneous or visceral leishmaniasis,” said Christine Petersen, D.V.M., Ph.D., an associate professor of veterinary pathology at Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and an expert on Leishmania transmission, immune responses and veterinary disease, who was not involved in the study. “In a few cases, these individuals have brought dogs back with them that also have leishmaniasis.”

The horse diagnosed at UF had no history of travel outside of the eastern U.S. The pregnant 10-year-old Morgan mare was treated as an outpatient at the University of Florida Large Animal Hospital for sores inside her left ear. A biopsy done in the field had suggested that the rare parasite was present when organisms that looked like the protozoa were seen within the inflammatory cells in that tissue. Further tissue samples and genetic analysis were used to identify the species of the disease-causing organism at UF.

Often, leishmaniasis of the skin will resolve without medical treatment. But the mare’s sores worsened over time — a development the veterinarians attributed to the pregnancy.

“Many of the horses in other countries that have been diagnosed with leishmaniasis were pregnant, so we think perhaps these horses have pregnancy-altered immune systems and are therefore more vulnerable to the disease,” Reuss said.

The drug used to treat horses with the disease in other parts of the world isn’t readily available in the U.S., and surgery wasn’t an option because the sores were inside the horse’s ear. After treatment with anti-fungal drugs, the sores eventually regressed. Horses housed at home with the affected horse did not show any signs of illness. Though the disease needs the sandfly as a carrier and does not pass directly among horses or between horses and humans, veterinary experts say the discovery of the new parasitic species in the U.S. is cause for increased vigilance.

“As a disease of animals capable of being transmitted to humans, leishmaniasis requires more attention to ensure we do not have vector-borne transmission within larger areas of the country,” Petersen said.

Dr. Dan Brown and bioscientist Dina Michaels use a fluorescence microscope to analyze cells of the canine immune system during infection with Mycoplasma canis. (Photo by Maria Farias)

By analyzing the genes of bacteria, University of Florida researchers have moved a step closer to pinpointing how two brain disorders common in small-breed dogs occur.

The researchers found that the bacteria, known as Mycoplasma canis, invade dog’s cells and suppress their immune system responses.

“This could explain how the bacteria are able to enter the brain in certain circumstances,” said lead investigator Daniel Brown, an associate professor of infectious diseases at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine. “If our theory is correct, it is possible that antibiotic therapy aimed at the mycoplasma could be beneficial if the condition is diagnosed early enough.”

The findings, which appear in the August issue of the Journal of Bacteriology, were also presented at the annual meeting of the International Organization for Mycoplasmology in France.

The researchers studied two common brain syndromes called granulomatous meningoencephalomyelitis, or GME, and necrotizing meningoencephalitis, or NME, which occur primarily in small toy-breed dogs such as pugs, Malteses, Yorkshire terriers, Chihuahuas and Pomeranians. The diseases affect the central nervous system, causing brain damage and symptoms such as seizures, decreased alertness and difficulty maintaining balance. There is no cure, but drugs can control the brain inflammation by suppressing the immune system.

No clear data exist on how widespread the disorders are.

“Although reliable information on new and existing cases is pretty scarce or nonexistent, inflammatory central nervous system disease is certainly one of the most common problems we deal with as veterinary neurologists,” said Christopher Mariani, D.V.M., Ph.D., an assistant professor of neurology at North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Mariana was not involved in the UF study.

The syndromes previously were thought to be caused by a virus or by an attack of the body’s own immune system. But University of Georgia researchers Renee Barber, and Scott Schatzberg, and colleagues, including Brown, reported earlier this year that whereas viruses were absent from the brain tissues of dogs with the diseases, the bacterium Mycoplasma canis was unexpectedly common. Interestingly, the researchers also found traces of the bacteria in some dogs that did not have the disease.

The bacteria would not have been detected by the methods used previously to search for a presumed viral agent.

In the new study, Brown and colleagues examined five strains of Mycoplasma canis isolated from three different parts of the body — the brain, the genital tract and the throat.

They found no difference between the genetic makeup of the bacteria from brain tissue and that of the bacteria from other sites.

What they did find was evidence that the bacteria don’t just sit on the surfaces of cells, but actually penetrate inside cells. That may be what enables entry into the bloodstream and eventually, to the brain, the researchers said.

“This finding is tantalizing, because it may offer an explanation as to why scientists have never been able to specify a viral, autoimmune or other cause of GME and NME,” Brown said.

In addition, different strains of bacteria were not equally efficient at suppressing the dogs’ immune responses.

The researchers are continuing to analyze the effects of bacterial infection on immune system cells known as macrophages to determine how the bacteria could breach the blood-brain barrier. Later, they will extend their studies to examining how the bacteria interact with different types of brain cells.

“The study is intriguing, but more work needs to be completed to determine the significance of these bacteria as a possible cause of GME and NME,” said Karen Vernau, an associate clinical professor and chief of neurology/neurosurgery at the University of California, Davis’ College of Veterinary Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

Dr. Ammon Peck

Dr. Ammon B. Peck, an immunology researcher and professor at the University of Florida, has been named associate dean of research and graduate studies at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, effective Sept. 1.

Peck was most recently a professor in the College of Medicine’s department of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine, with a joint appointment in the College of Dentistry’s department of oral biology. He helped build the graduate student program in immunology and molecular pathology within the College of Medicine during the 1980s and early 1990s.

Since then, Peck has continued to be engaged in classroom lectures, seminars and journal clubs in addition to directing independent research projects and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students in addition to postdoctoral fellows pursuing research careers.

He succeeds Dr. Charles Courtney following Courtney’s retirement from the position after 30 years of service on the college faculty.

“We are very fortunate to have attracted such an accomplished researcher and mentor to lead our Office of Research and Graduate Studies,” said Glen Hoffsis, D.V.M., the college’s dean.

While at UF, Peck has served as president of the College of Medicine faculty and as a member and vice chair of the Academic Health Center’s Institutional Review Board. He also established and co-directed the Type II Center for Research on Women’s Health, an intercollegiate center encompassing all six AHC colleges.

An active entrepreneur and consultant, Peck cofounded Ixion Biotechnology Inc. to commercialize research discoveries in diabetes and hyperoxaluria, a hereditary disorder that causes a type of stone to form in the kidneys and urine, beginning in childhood. The company received the Tibbetts Award from the Small Business Association in Washington, D.C., in 2000 and is currently conducting clinical trials of a product developed as a treatment for hyperoxaluria.

Peck’s research focuses on three main areas: the molecular mechanisms underlying the causes of autoimmune diseases, the pathogenesis of human and animal diseases involving hyperoxaluria, and stem cell biology.

Among the many honors Peck has received in his academic career are the 2012 International Association of Dental Research’s Distinguished Scientist Award for Salivary Research, the College of Medicine’s Exemplary Teacher Award in 2008, the Council of Biotechnology Award from Japan’s Tsurumi University in 2002, UF’s Step Professorship in 2001, and the UF Research Foundation’s distinguished professor designation in 1999.

Peck received his doctorate in medical microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1972. From 1974 to 1982, he worked at Uppsala University in Sweden, which overlapped with his appointment at UF in 1979.

Dr. Jim Wellehan holds a carpet python.

By Sarah Carey

A University of Florida researcher and colleagues in Australia and Germany have discovered what might be a deadly new snake virus.

Dubbed the “Sunshine virus” because of its discovery in Australia’s Sunshine Coast region, the organism causes nervous system and respiratory disease and is the first of its kind to be identified. Although it is in the same overall family as other viruses that affect snakes and lizards, the Sunshine virus doesn’t fit into existing subgroups of viruses.

The discovery, described online and in the upcoming October 2012 print edition of the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution, might help scientists better understand the biology and origin of an important group of disease-causing organisms and inform efforts to prevent future outbreaks.

“Understanding the ecology and diversity of infectious diseases of wildlife is critical,” said co-author James Wellehan, D.V.M., Ph.D., an assistant professor of zoological medicine at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine. “While medicine has traditionally waited for big outbreaks to cause large numbers of deaths and then dealt with new diseases reactively, an understanding of what viruses are out there and how they can be expected to behave allows us to be proactive, being aware of and monitoring agents of potential concern.”

The emergence in recent years of deadly new viruses that attack humans has raised concerns regarding transmission between wildlife, livestock and humans. For example, the Hendra and Nipah viruses caused high rates of death in Australia and Indonesia in the 1990s, not just among horses and pigs but also among humans.

The quest to identify the new virus started as an investigation of the cause of a 2008 disease outbreak in a privately owned Australian collection of 70 pythons. As more and more animals became sick, showing signs of pneumonia, depression, lethargy and abnormal behavior such as “star gazing” — staring up at things — they were all eventually euthanized.

The researchers had great difficulty detecting the elusive virus and struggled to identify the category in which it belonged.

“We screened more than 450 samples, including swabs, tissues and blood for snake viruses,” said lead author Timothy Hyndman, D.V.M., a lecturer and graduate student at Murdoch University in Australia. “It was very frustrating. After two and a half years, we finally isolated something. A year later, we figured out what it was.”

The researchers infected snake heart cells with virus collected from tissues of the affected snakes and found that it caused the cells to become abnormally large and have more than one nucleus, the cell’s command center.

Using sophisticated techniques for analyzing large numbers of genetic sequences at the same time, the researchers identified several that had limited similarity to known viruses in large genetic databases. They used this information to put together the genetic blueprint of the Sunshine virus. Statistical analyses that allow construction of a “family tree” showed that the Sunshine virus belonged to a family called paramyxovirus. That family contains some of the most significant disease-causing agents in animals and humans, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Measles, mumps and canine distemper are all in the family.

But unlike all known snake and lizard viruses in that family, the new virus did not fit into a subgroup called ferlavirus. The new virus is only distantly related to those viruses.

“This is the first non-ferlavirus paramyxovirus to be discovered from a reptile,” Hyndman said. “In the previous 40 years, reptilian paramyxoviruses were all very similar until this one was discovered.”

Previously known members of the virus family have grouped into two subfamilies. The Sunshine virus fell outside both of those known groups. Inclusion of Sunshine virus in the family tree analysis showed that viruses thought to be in the same subfamilies might not actually share recent ancestors, the researchers said.

“The two subfamilies may need to be split up into distinct families,” Wellehan said.

Although it is likely that the virus was responsible for the outbreak of disease in the collection of pythons, that has not been proved irrefutably.

The study shows off how sophisticated gene sequencing technology can be used to characterize mysterious new viruses and possibly speed up public health responses to outbreaks in humans, animals and plants, the researchers said.

“This virus was invisible to prior technologies,” said Eric Delwart, Ph.D., director of molecular virology at the Blood Systems Research Institute and an adjunct professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study. “Besides providing assays to help track and control outbreaks of this new snake virus, the study highlights the enhanced ability of scientists to rapidly identify novel pathogens.”

Dr. Mansour Mohamadzadeh in his laboratory.

By Lindy McCollum-Brounley

A mutant form of a meek microbe deals a gutsy blow to colon cancer, University of Florida scientists have discovered. The bacteria halted abnormal inflammation, reduced precancerous growths and reversed progression of severe cancerous lesions in the large intestines of mice. The findings appear June 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We have demonstrated that our bacterial treatment can take on established colon cancer,” said Dr. Mansour Mohamadzadeh, principal investigator,  a professor in the UF College of Veterinary Medicine department of infectious diseases and pathology and a faculty member in the UF College of Medicine division of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition in the department of medicine. “This is huge, because people don’t come to you 10 years before they have colon cancer saying, ‘I may get colon cancer, can you treat me?’ They come to you and say, ‘I have colon cancer.’ ”

For years researchers have understood that uncontrolled inflammation in the large intestine can result in various diseases, including colon cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis. The new study focused on understanding how to curb immune system processes in the gut that lead to harmful inflammation. Resulting treatments could work not just for diseases of the digestive tract, but also for other conditions such as diabetes and Sjögrens syndrome in which inflammation plays a major role.

Some inflammation in the gut is a good thing, as it serves to keep the body’s immune system in tip-top, disease-fighting shape. But under stress, the immune system overreacts with a cascade of inflammation-causing reactions. That can lead to afflictions in which the immune system attacks instead of protects the body. It can even cause colon cancer, which kills more than 50,000 Americans every year and is one of the nation’s leading causes of cancer deaths, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Mohamadzadeh, a member of the UF Shands Cancer Center and the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute, and colleagues previously demonstrated that a genetically modified form of the beneficial bacterium Lactobacillus acidophilus can bring overactive immune responses back to normal. They have now found that proteins on the surface of the bacteria can act on the immune system to either cause inflammation in the gut or tune it down.

To accomplish this, the researchers modified naturally occurring bacteria, removing genes that promote inflammation. The result was a form of the bacteria that was even better at controlling disease-causing inflammation. Moreover, mice with severe cases of polyps and cancerous intestinal lesions that were treated with the mutant bacteria had significantly reduced numbers of colon polyps compared with untreated mice, and showed no signs of active colon cancer or disease-causing inflammation.

“This a major discovery that defines how ‘healthy’ microbes function in the gut,” said Dr. Eugene B. Chang, the Martin Boyer professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery. Chang was not involved in the UF study. “This has far-reaching implications for the development of therapies derived from microbes that can treat many types of complex immune and digestive disorders.”

The mutant bacteria are easy and cost-effective to produce. Mohamadzadeh anticipates that a treatment for humans could be a pill that can be taken by mouth. Patients could receive the beneficial bacterial treatment in combination with surgery or other therapies.

Working dogs, such as K-9 officers, war dogs serving during military conflict, or rescue dogs who help with search and rescue efforts after natural disasters, often find themselves in life-threatening situations. But something seemingly more benign is often responsible for taking the lives of these animals — heat-related illness.

In working dogs, overheating can lead to dehydration, exhaustion, impaired ability to work or even death. But there are no evidence-based guidelines for preventing such heat-related issues. Now University of Florida researchers have conducted preliminary studies that may help fill that void and guide the prevention of heat-related illness in working dogs.

“These are real concerns, especially in the South in the summer as well as for working dogs deployed to the Middle East,” said lead researcher Sheilah Robertson, Ph.D., formerly a professor of veterinary anesthesiology at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, now an assistant director of animal welfare at the American Veterinary Medical Association. “We don’t know what a ‘work-rest’ schedule should be under different environmental conditions.”

Based on their studies, the researchers recommend that, as much as possible, dogs work for short periods in morning and evening hours when the temperature is lower, and are kept in shady, well-ventilated areas. They also recommend that dogs wear protective Kevlar vests in dangerous situations, because despite concerns, there isn’t evidence that the vests contribute to overheating. In addition, specially designed cooling vests can help dogs cool down faster after strenuous work.

The findings were presented earlier this year during the 28th International Canine Sports Medicine Symposium in Orlando.

Working K-9s have often made headlines over the past decade because of high-profile assignments such as deployment in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, their use in rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina, and even in hunting down terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden last year in Pakistan.

Acquiring and maintaining working animals is expensive. Each fully trained dog represents at least a $30,000 investment and countless hours of training. The true value of working dogs, however, can’t be measured in dollars, Robertson said.

Although most seasoned handlers try to minimize the risks to their dogs in hot and humid conditions, recommendations are based on best guesses or those used for humans. But big differences in physiology mean there is a limit to the usefulness of such efforts. For example, whereas humans use sweating to cool the body, dogs rely more on panting.

“What would also help us, as trainers, would be guidelines and explanations of the symptoms that we should be on guard for, so that we can recognize heat stress before it is serious,” said Phil Hoelcher, an internationally acclaimed Shutzhund trainer who has worked with many police departments and K-9 handlers around the U.S. “Our experience in the field is that once a dog’s temperature starts to spike, it is very hard to reverse it without going to our emergency methods of cold water, ice, fans and so on. We know that if it’s possible for even the most experienced trainer to miss the signs, it is not surprising that pet owners and less experienced trainers don’t even realize it is happening until it is too late.”

In the UF study, seven dogs went through intense 10-minute sessions that involved running at high speed, finding a hidden person and apprehending a “suspect” by the arm. Dogs performed the exercise with no vest, with a protective Kevlar vest and with a cooling vest that uses patented rechargeable packs to help maintain a comfortable body temperature. The dogs’ blood glucose, acidity levels and other values were measured, along with pulse and respiratory rates and rectal and core body temperatures before and immediately after activity, and throughout recovery periods. The study, funded through a $19,000 Morris Animal Foundation grant, was carried out during summer and winter months.

Robertson and co-investigator Kirsten Cooke, D.V.M., an associate professor of small animal medicine at the UF veterinary college, found that it took dogs longer to return to baseline temperature in the summer than in the winter — many cases 50 to 60 minutes longer. And in the summer, rectal temperatures could be 2.5 degrees Celsius higher than those at the body’s core. Dogs often needed more than an hour to cool down after intense summer exercise, and cooling vests helped some of them cool down faster.

There was no evidence that dogs were hotter when they wore Kevlar vests than when they went without, either in summer or winter.

“We recommend seeking more data on the use of cooling vests, and correlating rectal and core body temperatures to give a better understanding of how hot the dogs really are,” Robertson said. “In addition, we would like to see more studies of different cooling methods such as fans, air conditioned recovery areas or standing in water, and more research into the effect of repeated work cycles on the dogs over time.”

As the child of a U .S. diplomat, UF College of Veterinary Medicine professor Nancy Denslow’s early childhood was spent jumping from school to school — from Mexico City, where she was born, to Quito, Ecuador and Instanbul, Turkey before returning to the states with her family and settling in to her last two years of high school in Virginia. It was there that she discovered chemistry, and what would become a lifelong love of science and research.

By the time she graduated – as a chemistry major — from Mary Washington College, Denslow had an internship at the National Institutes of Health under her belt, along with two publications. She also had presented her honors research at a local American Chemical Society meeting. She then attended Yale University for a master’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology, and decided to take a hiatus.

“As most women at the time, I wasn’t sure I could handle being married, having  children and having a job as a scientist, so I quit, got married and had my first child,” said Denslow, a professor of physiological sciences and at UF’s Center for Environmental and Human Toxicology. Her husband, David Denslow, eventually accepted a faculty position at UF, where he is now a professor of economics.

After moving to Gainesville, Nancy Denslow recommitted to her scientific love and enrolled in the doctoral program in the College of Medicine’s department of biochemistry and molecular biology.

“I had a great time learning how to do research and studying about mitochondrial ribosomes and raising a family,” said Denslow, who had a second daughter soon after completing her Ph.D.  A short time later, she landed a job as technical director of the Proteomics Core of UF’s Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology. She brought in mass spectrometry technology and created new methods for helping UF researchers with questions about proteins. She soon started the ICBR’s Biomarkers Core Facility and established 2D electrophoresis as a service.

One of her first clients, an investigator from the Environmental Protection Agency’s laboratory in Gulf Breeze, Fla., brought fish that had been exposed to poly aromatic hydrocarbons and other endocrine compounds, and presented with hepatocellular carcinomas.

“He wanted me to analyze their blood for potential biomarkers,” Denslow said. “We did, and found vitellogenin, the egg yolk protein responsive to estrogen, had been induced in male fish.  This suggested that some of the contaminants were estrogen-like and were inducing male fish to produce female-specific proteins.  The significance of the finding changed her research path.  “After some research, we decided to make monoclonal antibodies against the biomarker. We were among the first to document the problem of estrogens in the U.S. waterways with wild fish.”

She said the research fascinated her because it was fundamental and basic, yet resolved a real issue and thus it was easy to see its practical application. Now Denslow is known for pioneering the introduction of molecular approaches to ecotoxicology, as well as for her collegial and enthusiastic approach to collaborative research and her endless appetite for science.

She received the Pfizer Award for Research Excellence from UF in 2007 and was named a UF Research Foundation professor in 2009. She cofounded two startup companies at the Biotechnology Development Institute, but modestly credits colleagues “who were willing to take the risk with me.”

What she most enjoys at UF is working with students, postdoctoral associates and staff.

“It is especially fun to solve a new problem or get new answers to issues that are facing us all in the environment,” Denslow said.

Using gene sequencing technology, the researchers developed a “brain and immunity chip” to characterize molecular changes in the equine brain during illness and recovery from West Nile virus. The findings were published in the journal PloS One in October.

“We hope this will help us understand why some animals and humans become sick and others succumb to the virus resulting in severe illness, lifelong neurological debilitation and even death,” said senior author Maureen Long, an associate professor of infectious diseases and pathology. “Knowing this will allow us to come up with treatments that aid in recovery from illness.”

Lead author and Long’s former graduate student Melissa Bourgeois, created a gene library enriched for neurological and immunological sequences to develop the novel chip, which will help target genes that are active during brain disease states.

A gene chip, or microarray, is a slide with hundreds of pieces of DNA strands arranged in a regular pattern. When those strands, called probes, are exposed to genetic material from equine cells, researchers can identify genes associated with equine brain disease. The UF group relied on Agilent Technologies, based in Santa Clara, Calif., which has patented the probes.

In the end, the equine brain chip consisted of 41,040 genes and included many targets that have counterparts in human psychiatric diseases, such as depression and schizophrenia; and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

West Nile virus is a potentially serious illness often transmitted by mosquitoes. Since 1999, more than 24,000 cases of West Nile virus encephalitis have been reported in horses in the United States, with more than 1,000 cases reported in 2006, according to the American Association of Equine Practitioners. In 2006, there was a 14 percent increase in human cases and new expansion of the virus into 52 U.S. counties.

Long and Bourgeois investigated the basic idea that certain families of genes change expression in
a consistent manner during West Nile virus infection, as well as during the disease and recovery from encephalitis caused by it.

“Although we knew there were microarrays that had previously been developed for horses, our goal was to create a brain and inflammation-based array to look specifically at how function was affected during brain infection,” said Long, who is also a member of the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute. “This chip has applications to many brain and spinal abnormalities of the horse including eastern equine encephalitis, equine protozoal myelitis, rabies, and even non-infectious diseases like Wobbler syndrome. This allowed us to detect changes that would not be common in normal horses.”

The UF study took more than five years and relied heavily on sequencing and bioinformatics expertise provided by the university’s Interdisciplinary Centers for Biotechnology Research.

“Analysis of the data found that many of the psychiatric, Parkinson genes and neuromuscular diseases were triggered,” Long said. “Then a computer program that can analyze hundreds of genes simultaneously was used to build models of various disease processes that may be affected in the acute disease and may result in other diseases once the infection is long gone.”

Data mining and testing of individual pathways of disease is the focus of current work in Long’s laboratory.

“The wonderful resources and excellent collaborators at the University of Florida will allow us to use the power of comparative medicine to contribute to the biology of brain infection in humans in animals,” Long said.

Bourgeois, who now works in the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, said, “Information discovered in this research could eventually be used to combat not only outbreaks of West Nile virus, but also as a model to understand and reduce the impact of viral encephalitis in general.”

Other collaborators include UF’s Nancy Denslow, a professor of physiological sciences; David Barber, formerly an assistant professor of physiological sciences at UF; and Kathy Seino, an assistant professor at Washington State University.

Dr. Cuong Nguyen holds a microchip capable of stories thousands of individual cells, which are profiled through a process called microengraving. (Photo by Sarah Carey)

Tennis star Venus Williams’ revelation that she had Sjogren’s syndrome not only increased the world’s familiarity with the debilitating autoimmune disease, it also caused some buzz in living rooms and laboratories right here in Gainesville.

“This news generated a lot of discussion among members of the community, and among my colleagues,” said Dr. Cuong Nguyen, a new faculty member in the college’s department of infectious diseases and pathology. Nguyen’s primary research involves the immunology of Sjogren’s syndrome. 

He also happens to be an avid tennis player.

“I was quite surprised when I heard Venus Williams had been diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome,” he said. “This disease occurs predominantly in middle-aged women. Therefore, it was quite a shock to hear the news, since she is only 31 years old.”

Sjogren’s syndrome is a chronic autoimmune disease in which people’s white blood cells attach their moisture-producing glands. As many as four million Americans live with this disease, and nine out of 10 patients are women, according to the Sjogren’s Syndrome Foundation. Hallmark symptoms are dry eyes and dry mouth, but patients with the disease may also experience extreme fatigue and joint pain.

“That could greatly impact (Venus Williams’) game,” Nguyen said. “In addition, the constant experience of thirst due to the disease obviously creates a disadvantage for her to compete at the highest level in her sport.”

A micrograph of antibodies microarray produced by microengraving. The different colors represent two different antibodies and a combination of those antibodies.

Nguyen, who joined the college’s faculty in July after completing a Ph.D. and postdoctoral work at UF in the Colleges of Medicine and Dentistry, examines the genetics that contribute to susceptibility to Sjogren’s syndrome. He is currently studying a group of immune cells that have been shown to cause damage to the salivary glands. To profile these cells, Nguyen uses an innovative technology called microengraving.

“This technology uses microchips that allow us to identify thousands of individual cells, and at the same time characterize the biological and immunological function of these cells,” Nguyen said. “As a result, we have devised several gene therapy approaches to suppress this cell population in animal models. We have obtained stunning and promising data that I think will be beneficial in human patients.”

In close collaboration with Drs. Carol Stewart and Indraneel Bhattacharyya from the College of Dentistry and Drs. Wesley Reeves and Yi Li from the College of Medicine, Nguyen looks at correlations between the animal models and humans to determine if it is possible to translate the gene therapy approach to human patients.

“We haven’t gotten there yet, but hopefully we will soon,” Nguyen said, adding that one intriguing aspect of Sjogren’s syndrome is that is has never been studied in animals.

“From conversing with one of our pathologists, Dr. Pam Ginn, I learned that certain breeds of dogs come down with keratoconjunctivitis sicca, or dry eyes, and that necropsy has revealed immune cells in the salivary glands,” Nguyen said.

“Clearly, these animals manifest a certain phenotype of the disease, but whether it is Sjogren’s syndrome-related or not requires more comprehensive research, which I find to be quite exciting.”

Although he called Williams’ situation “highly unfortunate,” Nguyen said he applauds her courage to come forward with her diagnosis.

“I believe her courage is creating a widespread awareness on the part of the general population to obtain routine check-ups,” Nguyen said. “Early detection with the appropriate intervention can slow down the deterioration of the glands.”

On the lighter side, he added his siblings and mother, who also play tennis on occasion, finally understand the research he has been doing at UF for the last eight years.