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with a long-time passion for horses and a desire to study veterinary medicine morgan found herself right at home at the texas a&m college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences (cvm)

after completing her bachelors degree in animal science from west texas a&m university morgan found herself searching for a veterinary program that matched with her career goals and aspirations when she looked into the program at texas a&m she felt the choice was simple

i wanted to focus on equine and mixed animal medicine and i knew that a&m had an outstanding large animal hospital at which i could learn a lot said morgan a first-year veterinary student i have worked for a few veterinarians who graduated from a&m and i always admired their knowledge and skillsc

another major influence in her decision according to morgan was dr dan posey academic coordinator for the texas a&m veterinary medical center (tvmc) at west texas a&m university whose passion and love for texas a&m radiated though his teaching it was enough to make anyone believe his beloved school was a special place morgan said

now an aggie morgan has felt the spirit and seen first-hand just what posey was talking about

i have loved my time at texas a&m so far she said the thing that i have enjoyed the most about a&m is the culture and how passionate all of the faculty and students are about this school and each other i love how willing everyone is to help and lend a hand for one another

although the transition to a new school may seem overwhelming and scary for some morgan felt prepared and confident to begin her new journey

so far my biggest challenge was actually finding a quick way to get from my parking lot to the veterinary & biomedical education complex during the first few weeks of school she joked

at west texas a&m morgan encountered hands-on courses centered around food animals and their health and production an area in which she was not previously knowledgeable morgan credits the rigorous curriculum and coursework there for her seemingly easy transition to the classes and workload at a&m

west texas helped prepare me for a&m by providing me with experiences that helped diversify my animal experience she said growing up i had a lot of experience with companion animals and horses but not so much cattle and other food animals the courses at west texas really allowed me to be more successful in the food animal lectures and labs that ive had so far at a&m

after graduating from veterinary school morgan plans to pursue a career in equine or mixed medicine eventually she would like to work at a private or specialty practice with the knowledge and experience she has gained from her time at west texas a&m and texas a&m university morgan feels confident she can conquer any and all challenges she may face along the way

ashlee adams

a life-long dream of becoming a veterinarian is becoming a fast reality for ashlee adams a first-year veterinary student at the texas a&m college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences (cvm)

before making the move to texas a&m university adams lived in the amarillo area where she first discovered her passion for animals

after graduating from west texas a&m in 2017 with a bachelors degree in animal science and a masters degree in animal science adams worked as a head veterinary technician at a small animal clinic while applying for veterinary school

ultimately i chose to come to texas a&m because they have reached out to and worked with students at west texas and they are one of the best veterinary schools you can attend adams said it also didnt hurt that it was affordable and fairly close to home

adams also credits her mentors dr dan posey academic coordinator for the texas a&m veterinary medical center (tvmc) at west texas a&m university and dr dee griffin tvmc director for making the decision to come to texas a&m an easy one

i met dr posey and dr griffin while working on my masters at west texas a&m and their enthusiasm for the field made me want to pursue being a veterinarian again adams said i knew if the professors at texas a&m were anything like them i would get an amazing education and have a great time doing it

upon arriving at texas a&m the distance from college station to the panhandle did not seem too far however adams admits that she experienced her fair share of homesickness in the beginning

ive never been this far away from my family for an extended period of time she said missing my family has been the greatest challenge so far but they are so supportive and keep me excited about this new experience

aside from a short spell of homesickness adams said her transition has been smooth and easy and the education she received at west texas has proven beneficial in her courses thus far

the classes at west texas were set up for us to learn and understand information that will be useful for the rest of our lives she said so far ive used a lot of my class notes from west texas to help me understand the concepts i am learning here and i am able to apply what im learning now to the experiences i gained at west texas

as adams continues through her first year of veterinary school she said she is thankful for the tradition and culture that a&m offers its students and would not trade this experience for anything

i really enjoy the team atmosphere that is created by the faculty and students here we all want to succeed as a team she said i have been blessed to be elected our class president and our officer team is a cohesive group of students who truly want the best for everyone

after graduation adams plans to move back to the panhandle to work with cattle at a feedlot and practice at a small animal clinic with the education and experience acquired from both universities under her belt adams looks forward to giving back to west texas in any way she can

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note: this story originally appeared in the 2019 spring edition of cvm today

for more information about the texas a&m college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences please visit our website at vetmedtamuedu or join us on facebook instagram and twitter

contact information: jennifer gauntt interim director of communications media & public relations texas a&m college of veterinary medicine & biomedical science; jgauntt@cvmtamuedu; 979-862-4216

could discoveries made by cvm professor and patsy link chair katrin hinrichs lead to healthier in vitro-produced human embryos

story by callie rainosek & dr megan palsa

horses have played a vital role in world history

until about a century ago they were one of mankinds main sources of transportation and communication

however thanks to advancing technology many horses have transitioned into companion animals or are specially trained to compete in events or perform specific tasks

mankinds relationship with horses has certainly changed over the years and thanks to dr katrin hinrichs at the texas a&m college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences (cvm) our relationship with horses could change even more

horsing around with icsi

a member of the cvms department of veterinary physiology & pharmacology with a joint appointment in the department of large animal clinical sciences hinrichs is a professor and the patsy link chair of mare reproductive studies she is recognized internationally for her research in equine reproductive physiology and oversees one of the few labs in the world capable of performing intracytoplasmic sperm injection (icsi) in the horse a process that is now the standard in equine assisted reproduction

icsi is a more complex form of traditional in vitro fertilization and is the only process that can efficiently produce a fertilized equine embryo outside of a mares body the process involves picking up a single sperm in a pipette under a powerful microscope and inserting the sperm into a mature oocyteor unfertilized egg

given the right conditions this will produce a fertilized egg and an early embryo will develop

there are two ways to perform icsithe conventional method and a specialized method that involves piezoelectricity in conventional icsi a pointed glass pipette is used to roll the sperm against the bottom of a manipulation dish to rupture its outer membrane which aids in fertilization the sperm is then injected through the zona or the outer shell of the oocyte and then through the oocytes membrane for fertilization

in piezo icsi the pipette is blunt and the shaft of the pipette is encased in a small motor unit that transmits minute vibrations to the pipette which allow the pipette to act like a drill with piezo icsi the motions of the drill are used to rupture the sperm membrane and the pipette then drills a miniscule hole in the zona the pipette is placed through the hole and the sperm is injected through the oocytes membrane into the oocyte

many labs that perform icsiin both humans and horsesuse the conventional method since piezo icsi requires additional expertise and the equipment is more expensive additionally piezo icsi has traditionally used mercury in the pipette to act as a stabilizer and limit pipette movement since mercury has the potential to be toxic to embryos many labs prefer conventional icsi

however when hinrichs lab at texas a&m started working on equine icsi in 2001 they opted to use the piezo drill because of its greater success in fertilizing embryos hinrichs lab was the first to report efficient in vitro development of equine embryos after icsi and remains one of the top laboratories in the world for equine embryo production

since no critical research had ever been done to compare embryo production rates between conventional and piezo icsi hinrichs always questioned whether the success of her lab using piezo was due to better lab conditions overall or because piezo icsi was more efficient in producing embryos than is conventional icsi

hinrichs got the chance to answer this question about two years ago when a scientist named renato salgado started working in her lab

a ‘garden of embryos

we were in this optimum situation hinrichs said because dr salgado had experience performing conventional icsi on humans

while standard in vitro fertilization methods (mixing of sperm and oocytes together in a petri dish) work in humans embryologists have found that fertilization rates are higher when sperm is injected into the oocyte via icsi therefore many assisted-reproduction clinics for humans now use icsi and this is typically done using the conventional method

salgados expertise in conventional icsi was combined with the skills of dr joao brom-de-luna another scientist in hinrichs lab who specializes in piezo icsi

hinrichs designed a study in which the two scientists fertilized equine oocytes side-by-side in the lab using the two icsi methods the development of the resulting embryos was then compared to make the results applicable to human laboratories brom-de-luna worked with a non-toxic compound instead of mercury in the piezo pipette

we collected oocytes and matured them in the same incubator hinrichs explained then we divided them into two groupsone group went to renato for conventional icsi and one went to joao for piezo icsi we cultured the oocytes in the same incubators afterwards and were surprised by the results

hinrichs and her team were expecting to find that one method produced more transferrable embryos than the other meaning that the embryos were at a stage in development where they can be transferred to a recipient mare to form a potential pregnancy

instead hinrichs and her team found that the piezo and conventional icsi methods produced the same number of transferrable embryos however the embryos produced using the conventional method developed more slowly

its like if you planted seeds in a garden hinrichs explained the seeds may come up between seven and 10 days after you plant them but some seeds will come up at day seven some at day eight and some at day nine or even 10 the embryos that develop earlier are healthierthey are more likely to make a pregnancy after you transfer them to a mare the embryos produced using piezo icsi grew faster and most developed to a transferrable stage by day seven the embryos produced using conventional icsi took eight or nine days

this discovery led to even more questions

hinrichs and her team hypothesized that the action of the piezo drill on the sperm membrane may have something to do with why the piezo icsi method led to faster embryo development possibly because the drill was rupturing the sperms acrosome

the acrosome is essentially a bag of enzymes that the sperm carries at the tip of its head hinrichs said during natural fertilization these enzymes are released to help the sperm get through the zona the outer ‘shell of the oocyte the real oocyte is inside this shell so in natural fertilization the sperm no longer has the acrosome when it actually contacts the oocyte however when we do icsi we just pick up the sperm acrosome and all and inject it

hinrichs thought that the piezo icsi method may have been rupturing the sperm acrosome before injection of the sperm into the oocyte if this was true then piezo icsi mimicked the natural fertilization process more closely than did conventional icsi potentially allowing the piezo embryos to develop faster

to test her hypothesis hinrichs and her team arranged for another examination of embryo development the team performed more rounds of side-by-side icsi but used special dyes to stain the injected oocytes to observe the sperm within the oocyte closely in the 18 hours after icsi

immediately after icsi we were anticipating that we would see that the acrosome was gone in the piezo treatment and was present in the conventional treatment hinrichs said however that wasnt true both piezo and conventional icsi sperm still had their acrosomes when we looked at them immediately after injection into the oocyte but at six hours after icsi we saw this huge difference in the piezo treatment the acrosome had come off the sperms head was starting to swell and fertilization was about to take place however after six hours in the conventional icsi treatment the acrosome was still on the sperm and the sperm head showed no sign of swelling

stumbling on a discovery

if the development process of both types of embryos is so different why is there no difference in embryo production rates hinrichs questioned

hinrichs investigated further and stumbled on a discovery

we began to compare the quality of the transferrable embryos hinrichs explained and the conventional embryos were significantly lower quality compared to the piezo embryos

hinrichs determined embryo quality based on the number of nuclei in the embryo and the percentage of nuclei that were developing normally abnormal nuclei appeared fragmented indicating that some cells within the embryo were dying

the conventional embryos had significantly lower nucleus numbers and higher rates of nuclear fragmentation hinrichs explained in other words there were fewer cells in the conventional embryos overall and more of those cells were abnormal compared to piezo embryos

this difference in quality is important because it could determine if the embryo leads to a successful pregnancy

a new model for assisted reproduction in humans

horses are one of the few species in the world in which like humans conventional icsi is repeatedly successful in producing embryos in the lab

therefore hinrichs believes that horses are the closest models for humans when it comes to assisted reproduction and her findings then are significant for both equine scientists and for laboratories working in human assisted reproduction techniques

all of this is interesting because conventional icsi is used in humans hinrichs said however we showed that in the horse while conventional icsi also works to produce embryos the embryos produced using piezo icsi develop more normally and are better quality

hinrichs suggests that piezo icsi could be a better way to produce human embryos for human assisted reproduction however little work has been done on piezo icsi in humans because it usually uses mercury in the pipette

of course youre not going to use mercury with a human embryo; it is potentially toxic hinrichs explained but in our study we used a non-toxic substitute for mercury a carbon-based compound called fluorinert fluorinert is also safe to be used in humans

despite the success of her study using a compound that is safe to use on human embryos hinrichs recognizes that further research is needed before piezo icsi can be regularly performed on human embryos additionally hinrichs hopes that future research will explore if the healthier embryos produced through piezo icsi lead to more successful pregnancies

something as simple as using a different icsi technique could help produce higher-quality embryos which in turn could lead to more successful human pregnancies hinrichs said

hinrichs research was published in the journal of assisted reproduction and geneticsa scientific journal that focuses on assisted-reproduction technologies in humans and associated research in relevant animal models

publishing her research in this human-based journal further solidified the novelty of her study and the significance of the horse being used as a model for assisted reproduction in humans

saving endangered species

hinrichs may have a strong passion for equine reproductive physiology but she has goals to help other species reproduce too over the years she has looked for ways to use her expertise to help endangered species such as the northern and southern white rhino and the grevys zebra

my next dream is to use assisted reproduction to help widen the gene pool of endangered species in the united states hinrichs said

but before pursuing this goal she is doing more research to study basic factors that might play a role in the health of equine embryos such as incubator temperature atmosphere and ph level although there are now methods for performing equine icsi that many laboratories follow nobody in the field of equine assisted reproduction has critically tested the basic requirements for optimum development of the equine embryo

we want to make sure that were producing embryos at the best rate possible and that they are as high quality as we can get hinrichs said all of these little factors may affect the health of our embryos and therefore affect successful pregnancy rates

a pioneer in the field

hinrichs was just a little girl when she first discovered her love for horses now she is one of the leading pioneers in equine assisted reproduction

for more than 30 successful years she has not only improved assisted reproduction in horses she has now brought humans and horses closer together than ever before

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note: this story originally appeared in the 2019 spring edition of cvm today

for more information about the texas a&m college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences please visit our website at vetmedtamuedu or join us on facebook instagram and twitter

contact information: jennifer gauntt interim director of communications media & public relations texas a&m college of veterinary medicine & biomedical science; jgauntt@cvmtamuedu; 979-862-4216

comparative immunologist michael criscitiello and a team of researchers from across the country are using special cattle antibodies to make medical breakthroughs in the areas of hiv and hopefully soon triple-negative breast cancer

story by jennifer gauntt

cows do neat things said michael criscitiello an associate professor in the texas a&m college of veterinary medicine & biomedical sciences (cvm) department of veterinary pathobiology (vtpb) as he sat in his office one friday afternoon

for the past six years criscitiello has been taking advantage of arguably one of the neatest things that cows can do

using special antibodies that cows naturally produce criscitiello and a team of researchers (including at scripps research institute) have made significant headway in hiv research by eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies to the virus that biomedical engineers in california and new york believe may hold a key for hiv vaccines therapeutics or other prevention tools

while that project has advanced into the human medicine realm criscitiello and another team including masters student kelly head are now turning their attention to using these same antibodies in a way they hope might one day be used to create an immunological treatment for breast cancer

hitting the bullseye

both projects began by immunizing a cow

a comparative immunologist who has devoted his career to studying weird antibodies in vertebratesincluding sharks and frogscriscitiello observed a remarkable phenomenon that appears in cattle antibodies

about 15 percent of cow antibodies have this extra finger-like projection; we call it an extra domain of the protein thats not in our antibodies he said these projections are called heavy chain complementarity-determining region 3 or hcdr3 loops

while humans dont have the immunogenetic tools to make hcdr3 in our genome hiv researchers found that 10 to 20 percent of people living with hiv do indeed naturally develop neutralizing antibody responses similar to hcdr3 but usually only after nearly two years of infection