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By Karen Singer '73 (CLAS)
It was an intriguing murder mystery: Police in New Jersey wanted to know whether the victim was alive while being dragged by the neck behind a car.
The pathologists dissected the body, taking tissue samples and examining the neck area, which showed no evidence of swelling or hemorrhage. X-rays revealed multiple broken bones and a fractured skull.
Their conclusion: the victim — a cat — was dead before the car dragging, most likely struck first by another car.
In another case, the pathologists uncovered a most unusual cause of a dog’s demise: a bar of soap stuck in its larynx.
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| Lung tissue sample from a cat that helped UConn pathologists determine that an e-coli bacterium was responsible for mecrotizing pneumonia in a group of cats. |
Such forensic work, a kind of “CSI” for animals, is one of many services the Department of Pathobiology and Veterinary Science in UConn’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources provides through the Connecticut Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (CVMDL) on the Storrs campus, the only lab in New England accredited by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians.
The laboratory is staffed by eight faculty members, five residents and several technical support staff who conduct investigations in collaboration with state and regional federal veterinarians, private practice vets, livestock producers and pet owners, among others.
“We cover a full spectrum of animals; everything from oysters to horses, cows, mice and rabbits,” says Herbert Van Kruiningen, director of the lab and head of the pathobiology and veterinary science department.
The UConn lab also serves as a watchtower for new and emerging diseases.
Over the past quarter century, the Connecticut Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory has helped to advance the fight against disease.
In the late 1980s, UConn researchers demonstrated a link between Lyme disease and domestic animals.
A decade later, Van Kruiningen and his colleagues made an important discovery, finding West Nile encephalitis in a red-tailed hawk, that he says, acquired it most likely by consumption of an infected crow rather than from mosquitoes.
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| Salvatore Frasca Jr., professor of patho- biology and veterinary science in the lab with Stephanie White-Hunt, a pathology student. |
| Photo by Peter Morenus |
More recently the lab has been the center for testing domestic and wild birds for avian flu and watching out for evidence of bioterrorism in animal diseases.
This past summer, CVMDL researchers began implementing a new federal program to test waterfowl for avian flu, which augments programs for testing domestic flocks and inspections at live bird markets in Bridgeport, Boston and New York.
Last year, CVMDL performed nearly 131,750 tests, including serology, virology, bacteriology, parasitology and molecular diagnostics on blood, serum, milk, feces and tissue samples from a variety of species.
Of the total, 1,450 tests were necropsies or biopsies handled by the pathology service.
Some tests, such as those for brucella — bacterium that can be transmitted from animals to humans — are mandated as part of state and federal disease control programs.
“Once in a while, we get a forensics case where somebody is upset because they think a neighbor poisoned pet, or the animal went to a kennel and wasn’t supposed to die but did,” Van Kruiningen says, noting that often necropsies are performed on farm animals and family pets.
“One of the things that we do is to bring closure to a case, by allaying the fears of an owner that they had done something wrong.”
State police may ask the pathologists to search animal corpses for a suspicious cause of death, such as being shot, but the lab’s investigations sometimes can save an entire herd of farm animals.
Van Kruiningen recalls a case in which several dead calves were recognized to have died of blackleg, a fatal disease caused by bacterial spores. Penicillin was quickly given to the other animals, stopping the outbreak.
In one instance about a dozen years ago at UConn’s Mirror Lake, a normally tranquil landmark on the Storrs campus, waterfowl were dying.
Swans, ducks and geese couldn’t fly because they were paralyzed.
“They couldn’t eat,” Van Kruiningen says. “They couldn’t hold their necks up and some of them drowned.”
Finding that their highly sought expertise was needed literally in their own neighborhood, the UConn scientists conducted tests and analysis to quickly discover that because of an especially dry summer with extremely low water levels, the birds were eating vegetation growing in soil containing spores of botulism, which produced a deadly neurotoxin.
About 150 birds died before sufficient rainfall fixed the problem, Van Kruiningen says.
The laboratory’s origins date back to the early 1920s, when it was in the school’s Department of Animal Diseases.
The first director, Erwin L Jungherr, an Austrian veterinary pathologist, focused on testing for diseases prevalent in the state at the time — brucellosis, an infectious disease affecting goat, sheep, cattle, swine, dogs and other animals and Eastern encephalomyelitis of horses and humans.
The second director, Charles F. Helmboldt, a pathologist with a strong interest in avian pathology, helped create the Northeastern Research Center for Wildlife Diseases, which opened on campus in the late 1960s as a collaborative venture between 13 states.
Projects included studying lead poisoning in waterfowl, mercury poisoning in mink and otter and the transmission of Lyme disease.
Over time, the collaboration waned as each state developed its own laboratory.
The department name has changed over the years, along with the interests of the faculty. By the 1970s, it was known as the “Pathobiology” department. The words “veterinary science” were added several years ago.
The laboratory investigates zoonotic diseases, or diseases that affect animals and people, says Sandra L. Bushmich, an associate professor who heads the Diagnostic Testing Services part of CVMDL.
The laboratory is part of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network and receives funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The national lab network seeks to improve diagnostic capabilities aimed at early detection of an animal disease outbreak or a biological attack. The avian flu monitoring programs have dramatically increased the lab’s output.
“We tested 700 birds in one week,” Bushmich says, adding it is important for the public to know that domestically raised poultry are very safe.
Bushmich keeps tabs on lists of animal diseases and toxins published and updated by the World Organization for Animal Health.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. developed a list of select agents most likely to be used in a bioterrorist activity, including anthrax, the toxin of botulism and highly pathogenic viruses that can affect either animals or humans.
“These aren’t the only diseases we’re worried about,” Bushmich says, “and we have to keep an eye on the necropsies for something that could be a big deal.”
Which is one reason Van Kruiningen frequently tells his pathology residents that, “Every day there is the potential to see something important.”
Saving Seahorses
Seahorses are popular attractions at aquariums and big investments.
These fascinating fish, which can be difficult to keep in acquaria, are being threatened by commercial development of their natural habitats and exploration for the fishing trade.
Aquariums seek to raise various species to help sustain and recover natural populations.
“There’s a great deal of interest on the part of aquariums to learn all they can about seahorses and seadragons. As a result, we’ve seen a lot of diagnostic cases,” says Salvatore Frasca Jr., a UConn associate professor of pathobiology and veterinary science who works nationally with 20 aquariums on problems ranging from maintaining collections to rehabilitating injured and stranded mammals.
Among those he works with are the National Aquarium in Boston, Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco and the New England Aquarium in Boston.
Frasca and his colleagues are assembling “a manuscript detailing the diseases of seahorses and seadragons” for the aquarium and veterinary communities in order to shed light on the common problems encountered in keeping these animals.
As aquariums become more eager to understand the biology and pathology of aquatic animals, they are also helping to develop expertise in the field.
The New England Aquarium, for example, recently began funding a new, post-doctoral fellowship at UConn stemming from Frasca’s five-year collaboration with the institution.
The UConn researchers also work with farmed fish diseases and are “providing insights to the industry, and giving them ways to manage disease better.”