The History of Veterinary Medicine:
A Time Line
2000
First cloned transgenic animal produced that carries a gene designed to enhance the health and well-being of the animal. This cow has the potential to produce an enzyme that destroys mastitis-causing bacteria.
First pathogenic bacterium identified that does not need or use iron. The bacterium causes Lyme disease in humans.
Using her tenacious approach to diagnosis, NYC zoo pathologist Tracey McNamara, DVM linked a rash of local crow deaths to a mysterious human encephalitis outbreak in 1999. McNamara found their common cause to be West Nile Virus, a foreign pathogen not then recognized in the United States, which causes death in many of its human and animal victims. A diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Pathology, McNamara earned her veterinary degree from Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine in 1982, and is the chief of pathology at the Wildlife Conservation Society, headquartered at the Bronx Zoo.
An internationally-recognized authority on blood diseases in animals, W. Jean Dodds, DVM established Hemopet, the first nonprofit blood bank for animals, in the mid-1980s. Through southern California-based Hemopet, Dodds - a grantee of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and author of over 150 research publications – provides canine blood components and blood-bank supplies throughout North America, consults in clinical pathology, and lectures worldwide
A pioneer in the field of early-embryo development, Ralph L. Brinster, VMD, PhD conducts revolutionary research in embryonic-cell differentiation, developmental mechanisms of gene control, and transgenesis. Extending transgenic techniques to farm animals, Brinster, a 1960 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, showed that new genes can be introduced into these species with the potential to increase disease resistance, enhance growth, even produce vital proteins like blood-clotting factors, needed by hemophiliacs. Brinster‘s work has spawned opportunities for other scientists to pursue research in such areas as oocyte maturation, fertilization, embryogenesis and nuclear transplantation.
The first person to visualize the Ebola virus, under the electron microscope, Frederick A. Murphy, DVM, PhD has spent his career studying rabies, viral encephalitides and other zoonoses. At the Centers for Disease Control, where he served as director of the Division of Viral Disease and chief of Viral Pathology, Murphy played key roles in the discovery of the Ebola virus in 1976 and in investigations of Ebola outbreaks in monkeys in Virginia and Texas in the late 1980s. Murphy, now dean emeritus and a veterinary virologist at the University of California, Davis, has recently been involved in National Academy of Sciences efforts to ensure the conversion of overseas biological-warfare research institutions to peaceful purposes.
Annie, bred by ARS, is the first transgenic cow clone engineered to resist mastitis, which costs the U.S. dairy industry $1.7 billion annually.
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