Maritime Quality Milk (MQM), one of the Atlantic Veterinary College’s centres of expertise, serves all the Atlantic provinces. MQM uses milk-quality research to strengthen the region's agriculture and agri-food sectors and develops and markets milk-based diagnostics for disease surveillance through non-invasive testing methods.

Each year, MQM works with 335 dairy farms--that's 20,100 cows and 150,750,000 litres of milk.

For more information: www.milkquality.ca

The overall research goal of the Comparative Orthopedic Research Laboratory (CORL) at the AVC is to promote the health of athletic animals with musculoskeletal injuries. Two SJDAWC-funded projects helped Dr. McDuffee move toward this goal. Through the project, A model for bone healing in the horse, isolation of bone cells from bone tissue was evaluated. Results from the initial study provided data that subsequently assisted Dr. McDuffee in obtaining further research funding from the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) (Cell based strategy to promote bone healing).

In another SJDAWC-funded project, (Skeletal muscle as a source of bone and cartilage cells to improve healing in the horse), Dr. McDuffee’s team is investigating muscle as a donor tissue source. Muscle provides results similar to that of periosteum, but is harvested with easier techniques, has fewer problems...

Through several SJDAWC-funded research projects, Dr. Jay McClure’s research team has looked at immune function, primarily in horses. These projects include:

- Treatment of immune failure in newborn foals
- Screening tests for immune failure in newborn foals
- Effect of aging on the immune system of horses
- Improved diagnosis in equine diarrhea

The first project compared two products used in the treatment of failure of passive transfer (FPT), a common and potentially fatal condition of immune failure in foals. A further SJDAWC-funded study compared five different FPT screening tests for foals to the gold standard, radial immunodiffusion (RID), from which recommendations for optimal testing were made to veterinarians. In further work, Dr. McClure and colleagues have studied the effects of age and nutritional status on immune function in horses and foals...

Senior veterinary students provide consistent basic and preventative health care to incoming and resident horses at 2 horse sanctuaries on PEI— PEI Equine Retirement Society, Inc in O’Leary (since 1997) and Handibear Hills in Breadalbane (since 2004). The care of these horses includes vaccination, physical examination, dental work, and monitoring and treatment for parasites.

Senior veterinary students provide consistent basic and preventative health care to incoming and resident horses at 2 horse sanctuaries on PEI— Handibear Hills in Breadalbane (since 2004) and the PEI Equine Retirement Society, Inc in O’Leary (since 1997). The care of these horses includes vaccination, physical examination, dental work, and monitoring and treatment for parasites.

The Chinook Project was created by Jane Magrath, Associate Professor of English, and Lisa Miller, Professor of Pathology and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at AVC, with a mandate to provide essential veterinary care to isolated communities in the Canadian Arctic. Each summer, the project responds to a request for service by taking four veterinary students in their final year of study and two AVC clinicians, along with essential equipment, to a community in Nunavut. The project visited Kimmirut (Southern Baffin) in 2006 and 2008, Cambridge Bay (Western Arctic) in 2007, and Kugluktuk (Western Arctic) in 2009.

Visit the Chinook Project website: www.upei.ca/projects/chinook/
or read about it in the UPEI Magazine:...

This program, which places veterinary students in training and counselling positions at the PEI Humane Society (PEIHS), has been in operation since 2001. The mandate of the PEIHS is to find “permanent loving homes” for the animals in its care. In the case of dogs, educating owners so that they have reasonable expectations about dog ownership, matching the right dog to the right home, and ongoing support of owners through behavioural and training issues with the dogs after adoption are extremely important.

This project has received funding for the next two years for the continuation and enhancement of the program. One AVC student trainer has been hired as the co-ordinator and is working full-time at the PEIHS during the summer. The co-ordinator will continue working on a part-time basis through the fall and winter semesters, and will be joined at that point by three other part-...