Veterinary Medicine | Penn Today

Veterinarians and handlers with their search-and-rescue dogs

Tracking the working dogs of 9/11

A study of search and rescue dogs led by the School of Veterinary Medicine showed little difference in longevity or cause of death between dogs at the disaster site and dogs in a control group.

Jennifer Punt stands with three students in a lab setting discussing a paper.

Penn Vet expands timely dual degree during COVID-19 pandemic

The interdisciplinary “One Health in Practice” curriculum positions veterinarians for new career pathways in human, environmental health.

Sequence of 8 MRI images showing treated versus untreated brains from 16 to 52 weeks

Progress toward a treatment for Krabbe disease

The inherited disease, which typically kills children before their second birthday, has no cure, but a School of Veterinary Medicine study in a canine model offers hope for an effective gene therapy with lasting results.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Billy the Philly hero dog wins state vet award for bravery

Rachel Williams and Martin Hackett of the School of Veterinary Medicine spoke about Billy, a local dog that survived multiple gunshots sustained while protecting his owners from armed robbers. “He’s really almost a miracle,” said Williams.

hen in a coop with two eggs on hay on the ground

Poultry in a pandemic: Getting the facts on keeping backyard flocks

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Penn Vet’s Sherrill Davison has seen an increase in phone calls from new flock owners looking for general management resources for their birds. Here, she offers health and safety advice for keeping flocks healthy.

Science

What does the COVID-19 summer surge mean for your cats and dogs?

Shelley Rankin of the School of Veterinary Medicine spoke about pets and COVID-19 transmission. “If you are not taking precautions … you are putting both yourself and your animal at risk,” she said. “If you are a responsible pet owner, then it is probably safe to say that your animal’s risk [of infection] is lower than yours.”

The Wall Street Journal

Tired of the people in your family? Some are teaching their dogs to talk

Carlo Siracusa of the School of Veterinary Medicine weighed in on teaching dogs to communicate by pressing buttons assigned to human words. “People can do it, it’s fun, but I think it’s much more important from the dog welfare standpoint that we make an effort to understand the dog’s language,” he said.

Illustration of brain with DNA double helix

Getting gene therapy to the brain

Using a large animal model of genetic brain disease, researchers led by John H. Wolfe of the School of Veterinary Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia delivered an effective treatment across the blood-brain barrier to correct the whole brain.

NBC News

How old is your dog? New equation shows how to calculate its age in human years

Margret Casal of the School of Veterinary Medicine offered advice for promoting longevity in dogs and commented on a new equation to measure how dogs age. “It will be interesting to look at different breeds," she said. "We know that some smaller breeds live longer and some larger ones don’t live quite as long.”

Illustration of a T cell releasing signaling molecules, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, and IL-13

Q&A

Navigating cytokine storms

Pairing their expertise, Nilam Mangalmurti of the Perelman School of Medicine and Christopher Hunter of the School of Veterinary Medicine have been working to understand the protective and harmful aspects of the immune response, including in COVID-19.

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