Professional Student Education and Training During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Introduction: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous challenges to education at all levels, but has been particularly challenging for professional schools and other educational sectors that require intensive hands-on training. Those institutions have had to deploy and continuously adapt new learning strategies in response to an ever-changing pandemic landscape over the past two years, while at the same time meeting the rigorous proficiency standards for their students.

Methods: This communication describes how two professional schools at Oregon State University, the College of Pharmacy and the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine, pivoted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure continuity in student training.

An Analysis of the Infections and Determination of Empiric Antibiotic Therapy in Cats and Dogs with Cancer-Associated Infections.

Cancer patients commonly develop infectious complications over the course of the disease. One thousand patients receiving treatment for an oncologic disease at a single veterinary teaching hospital were retrospectively reviewed for concurrent infections. A total of 153 confirmed bacterial infections were identified, 82 of which were abscesses or wounds, 13 of which were respiratory infections, 3 of which were ear infections, and 55 of which were urinary tract infections.

Further characterization of Vibrio vulnificus rugose variants and identification of a capsular and rugose exopolysaccharide gene cluster.

Capsular polysaccharide (CPS) is a major virulence factor in Vibrio vulnificus, and encapsulated strains have an opaque, smooth (OpS) colony morphology, while nonencapsulated strains have a translucent, smooth (TrS) colony morphology. Previously, we showed that OpS and TrS parental strains can yield a third colony type, rugose (R), and that the resulting strains, with the OpR and TrR phenotypes, respectively, form copious biofilms. Here we show that while OpR and TrR strains both produce three-dimensional biofilm structures that are indicative of rugose extracellular polysaccharide (rEPS) production, OpR strains also retain expression of CPS and are virulent in an iron-supplemented mouse model, while TrR strains lack CPS and are avirulent.

Studies on the growth of Bartonella henselae in the cat flea (Siphonaptera: Pulicidae).

Two out of three pools of cat fleas, Ctenocephalides felis (Bouche), that were fed Bartonella henselae-positive cat blood for 3 d and then bovine blood for 3 d, were polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive for B. henselae. In a second experiment, three cats were inoculated with a streptomycin-resistant strain of B.

Antibody responses of cattle with respiratory coronavirus infections during pathogenesis of shipping fever pneumonia are lower with antigens of enteric strains than with those of a respiratory strain.

The serum antibody responses of cattle with respiratory coronavirus infections during the pathogenesis of shipping fever pneumonia were analyzed with different bovine coronavirus antigens, including those from a wild-type respiratory bovine coronavirus (RBCV) strain (97TXSF-Lu 15-2) directly isolated from lung tissue from a fatally infected bovine, a wild-type enteropathogenic bovine coronavirus (EBCV) strain (Ly 138-3), and the highly cell culture-adapted, enteric prototype strain (EBCV L9-81). Infectivity-neutralizing (IN) and hemagglutinin-inhibiting (HAI) activities were tested. Sequential serum samples, collected during the onset of the respiratory coronavirus infection and at weekly intervals for 5 weeks thereafter, had significantly higher IN and HAI titers for antigens of RBCV strain 97TXSF-Lu15-2 than for the wild-type and the highly cell culture-adapted EBCV strains, with P values ranging from <0.

Development and evaluation of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the serodiagnosis of pythiosis in dogs.

Pythiosis (caused by the aquatic oomycete Pythium insidiosum) is a devastating and often fatal cause of either severe transmural gastroenteritis or locally invasive subcutaneous disease in dogs living in the southeastern United States. Although early diagnosis is essential for successful treatment, tools available for this task are limited. Therefore, we developed and evaluated an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of anti-P insidiosum antibodies in canine serum.