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Columns::March 10, 2003
Symposium looks at ways to dismantle‘persistent poverty’
Daughter of Brown decision plaintiff to deliver annual Tresp Lecture
Vet med students host international meeting
Peach State Poll: Georgians like new electronic voting machines
Lecture to consider approaches to first year of college
Get your (alternative) motor running
Study ranks university high in advertising research productivity
Campus Closeup
Update: Private Giving
Kudos
Unbuckling the Poverty Belt
Warm reception
Campus News
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| Toxicologist Larry Thompson inspects the graphite furnace of an atomic absorption spectrophotometer at the laboratory. The instrument is used for blood lead-level analysis. (Photo by Michael Mauel) |
Lab results
Diagnostic and investigational facility in Tifton saves lives, dollars
By Dot Sparer
dsparer@vet.uga.edu
One of UGA’s best-kept secrets is a laboratory on the edge of two large ponds 240 miles south of the campus. It has existed for 35 productive years and employs some of the university’s brightest scientific minds engaged in work which saves the state millions of dollars as well as lives.
“We try to figure out why animals are dead or dying,” says Charles “Sandy” Baldwin, director of the Tifton Veterinary
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| Veterinary Diagnostic and Investigational Laboratory, Tifton. (Photo by Michael Mauel) |
Diagnostic and Investigational Laboratory. “When veterinarians have a problem they can’t figure out, they’ll collect samples and/or send the whole dead animal to us for a necropsy [autopsy].”
The diagnostic process begins and ends with the laboratory’s pathologists. They look at the outside of the animal--was there a puncture wound? An infection on the skin? Then they dissect it and look inside. Does the liver look normal? Is there a tumor some place?
About 51,000 samples of organs, tissues and blood are sent each year to different departments in the laboratory in a well-organized triage system. The histology laboratory sections the specimens and makes slides for the pathologist to look at under the microscope. Is it a fungus? Bacterium? Parasite? Virus? Poison?
“Turnaround time--from the time the sample comes through the door to the time the report goes out--is a phenomenal 2.6 days,” Baldwin says. “Not many laboratories can say that.”
Even though the lab gives veterinarians much of the information they need to make good treatment decisions, he says, “We try not to get in the business of telling them what to do.”
Cases range from crickets to elephants, but horses are the most frequent submission. By law they must be tested for equine infectious anemia, or swamp fever, an often fatal viral disease which the state wants eradicated. The laboratory, which did about 25,000 of these tests last year--an average of 65 a day--is a crucial part of the eradication program.
“They’ve done a good job,” says John Glisson, associate dean for Public Service and Outreach. “This has been a very successful program.”
After horses, biopsies from dog tumors are the most frequent submission. Veterinarians want to know if they’re dealing with a benign tumor or one that might spread.
“One of the main reasons the laboratory was established is its mission of disease surveillance--safeguarding the health and safety of the state’s products and people,” Glisson says.
To make sure that it’s safe to sell and to drink, milk from hundreds of herds is tested for bacteria by the lab.
“Our job is to let farmers know: Here’s what we find in your herd and these are the animals you should remove or treat,” says microbiologist Michael J. Mauel.
The lab’s staff also does the surveillance for the state for West Nile virus in all mammals except wildlife. Last year they tested 600 horses, and even helped an alligator farmer who had lost thousands of baby alligators to West Nile.
“Because we have this mission of disease surveillance, the state supports our laboratory,” Baldwin says. “We don’t recover the total cost here for the 170,000 tests we do. No matter what we do the charge is minimal, and the state supports the rest of it.”
All faculty at the lab use 20 percent of their time for clinical or basic research. One investigator developed a vaccine against a herpes infection in cows. Another is looking for ways to treat a disease similar to Rocky Mountain spotted fever that is killing thousands of tilapia, a food fish, worldwide.
Most surprising perhaps is the work of a faculty member who studies reproduction in bowhead whales in Alaska and collaborates with other scientists on studies of various marine mammals, including whales, ring seals, and polar bears.
Thirty-nine employees from all parts of the country keep the lab going. Ten are professionals--mostly veterinarians--who do the diagnostic work.
Who benefits from the lab’s work? Producers of food animals have better profit margins. Pet owners know why their animals are sick and veterinarians know how to treat them. Consumers benefit from wholesome food and milk products. And the state as a whole is protected by the disease surveillance activities.
“Our main point of pride is that we do a good job,” Baldwin says. “A lot of laboratories do what we do, but we do an excellent job. And fast. That’s important to everyone in Georgia.”
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