Cornell University Recieves Grant For Equine Immunodeficiency Research
Edited Press Release

Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicines clinical research program will receive $1,000,000 in NIH funding over the next four years. The funding will support two initiatives: the DNA Bank and common variable immunodeficiency in horses.

Julia Flaminio, the Harry M. Zweig assistant professor in equine health and assistant professor of large animal medicine, received a two-year grant in the amount of $100,000 to study common variable immunodeficiency in horses.

Cornell University diagnosed the first case of the common variable immunodeficiency in horses in 2001. Horses affected by this disease cannot make antibodies because they lack B cells, which are responsible for antibody production. Our data suggests that these cells have an impaired development in the bone marrow but are also lost from the lymphoid tissues with time.

"We have diagnosed this potentially fatal disease in 14 horses," said Flaminio. "It is intriguing because affected horses that have been healthy for years become susceptible to infections, and present recurrent pneumonia and bacterial meningitis because of the lack of antibodies. The difficulty in understanding this disease is that by the time the case is diagnosed, the cells responsible for antibody production B cells are not present."

To counter the absence of the critical cells, Flaminio's research team will use the grant to develop a horse/mouse chimera, and use a SCID mouse to serve as the recipient of horse immune cells. Researchers will monitor how horse B cells develop and respond to immunizations in the mouse. 

Source: www.vet.cornell.edu