Skip to Content Skip to Content

Veterinary Medicine

Scent-trained dogs can detect chronic wasting disease
Wildlife Society

Scent-trained dogs can detect chronic wasting disease

A study by Amritha Mallikarjun of the School of Veterinary Medicine and colleagues finds that dogs can detect a deadly prion disease by smelling deer dung.

Dogs could help state game commission track chronic wasting disease
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Dogs could help state game commission track chronic wasting disease

Studies from the Veterinary School of Medicine’s Working Dog Center have found that dogs can determine if a deer or elk has chronic wasting disease by sniffing the animal’s scat.

Trained dogs can sniff out a deadly deer disease
A Finnish spitz dog sniffs at a jar labeled CWD+

Jari, an 8-year-old Finnish spitz, takes in the odor of a sample taken from a deer with chronic wasting disease. Penn Vet scientists are working to see whether detection dogs trained to discern the disease’s scent could be employed as a tool in helping contain its spread.

(Image: Shelby Wise/Wise K9 Photography)

Trained dogs can sniff out a deadly deer disease

The proof-of-concept investigation by School of Veterinary Medicine researchers suggests detection dogs could be an asset in the effort to identify, contain, and manage chronic wasting disease, a highly contagious ailment.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Harnessing an innate protection against Ebola
fluorescent microscopic image of two cells being infected with virus

An innate mechanism in human cells may prevent Ebola virus from spreading, according to new Penn Vet-led research. Using powerful confocal microscopy, they tracked the budding of virus-like particles from cells (shown in the filamentous projections in the cell in the upper right) and how autophagy, a “self-eating” cellular process, by which viral proteins are sequestered in vesicles (shown in the cell in the lower left), inhibits virus-like particles from exiting.

(Image: Courtesy of the Harty lab)

Harnessing an innate protection against Ebola

School of Veterinary Medicine researchers have identified a cellular pathway that keeps Ebola virus from exiting human cells, with implications for developing new antivirals.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Partnering with farmers to advance livelihoods, food, and health
tractors on display at the pa farm show

(Homepage image) With a $130 billion economic impact, agriculture is Pennsylvania’s largest industry. At the Farm Show this year, Penn Vet faculty, staff, and students highlighted the integral role that veterinarians play in keeping that sector thriving.

Partnering with farmers to advance livelihoods, food, and health

At the 107th Pennsylvania Farm Show last week, with the theme “Rooted in Progress,” the School of Veterinary Medicine’s importance to the state’s agricultural industry was on full display.

Katherine Unger Baillie