CVM Faculty, Staff and Student Accolades

The National Institutes of Health has awarded Frank Booth, PhD, professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine Department of Biomedical Sciences, and R. Scott Rector, PhD, associate professor in the MU School of Medicine Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology a grant for their research focusing on the effects of the liver on brain function. The title of the study is “Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity: Liver Adaptations Drive Brain Benefits.” The NIH award is more than $1.5 million and will fund the research for three years.

The goal of this study is to see how exercise affects the liver, and therefore affects brain function of rats. The study involves having the animals run on treadmills and then conducting a series of harmless behavioral tests to determine the extent that liver health is improving the brain function. Booth says the research is important for understanding how we may be able to combat and prevent neurodegenerative diseases in humans through exercise. “If there are no therapies to cure these neurodegenerative diseases, then the alternative is to keep people from getting them,” Booth says. “We’re going to try to figure out which genes are affected and then either people will be encouraged to exercise, or people can then develop therapies to prevent neurodegenerative diseases.”

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $1.9 million MPI R01 grant to Nicole Nichols, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine and Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center investigator, and Teresa Lever, PhD, associate professor of otolaryngology at the MU School of Medicine.

The goal of their research is to understand how breathing and swallowing deteriorates in rats whose motor neurons responsible for upper airway function are selectively eliminated, and to determine if a non-invasive, individualized exercise program designed to strengthen tongue function can preserve swallowing and breathing function and coordination. This study will allow them to determine the underlying mechanism of exercise induced preservation and plasticity of upper airway function in the surviving motor neurons responsible for swallowing and breathing function and coordination. Ultimately, this project could lead to future translational studies involving people.

Congratulations to Marie Kerl, DVM, MPH, DACVIM-Small Animal Internal Medicine, DACVECC, an adjunct teaching professor in pathobiology at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, on receiving the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society’s Ira Zaslow Distinguished Service Award.

This award is the highest honor the VECCS presents, and is given annually to an individual who has demonstrated extraordinary commitment and exceptional contribution to the specialty of emergency and critical care, as well as to the VECCS. The award is named after Ira M. Zaslow, one of the founding fathers of the VECCS and the ACVECC.

Kerl has served in many positions for the VECCS, including member-at-large on the board of directors, president-elect, president and past-president. She also served on the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care board of regents as vice-president, where she also led the ACVECC Scientific Program Committee. Kerl has been a member on the editorial board of the Journal of Emergency and Critical Care since 2004, and currently serves as an assistant editor. She has also been a member of the National Veterinary Response Team since 2007 and has been the regional medical director for Veterinary Centers of America since 2017 and regional operations director since 2020.

A press release from the VECCS stated, “Dr. Kerl has dedicated invaluable hours as a member of the ACVECC Examination Committee, further demonstrating her passion for mentoring, training and certifying the next generation of veterinary leaders and colleagues.”

Congratulations to Rajiv Mohan, PhD, FARVO, and his lab team on receiving the Travel Award from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Sabeeh Kamil, MBBS, a research fellow in the lab, received the prestigious award for presenting his research findings at the trans-agency scientific meeting titled, “Developing Medical Countermeasures to Treat Acute and Chronic Effects of Ocular Chemical Toxicity” held Feb. 25-26, in Rockville, Maryland.

Congratulations to Cheryl Rosenfeld, DVM, PhD, a professor in the CVM Department of Biomedical Sciences, who was recently voted to be the first female president of the United States Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Society. The U.S. DOHaD Society was founded in 2016 and is an affiliate of the International DOHaD Society. This organization is focused on all facets of the study of the fetal origins and early life programming of health and disease.  The primary emphasis of the organization is to promote the research principles of DOHaD, it also strives to support trainees and early career investigators in their scientific and professional development.