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The infectious disease research faculty of the
Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine (LSU
SVM) encompasses a diverse, multi-disciplinary group whose combined expertise
provides a unique resource for training future researchers in the molecular
pathogenesis of infectious agents of animals. Faculty
participating in this program have expertise in bacteriology, virology,
parasitology, immunology, molecular genetics, and biotechnology. Participating
research programs focus on infectious agents, on host responses to injury, and
on the interaction between infectious agents and host responses. Molecular
genetic approaches of the participating faculty include investigations
concerning the genetic basis of pathogen virulence, molecular approaches to
elucidate and enhance immune responses to infectious agents, and transgenic
approaches to enhancing host resistance.
This diverse expertise, combined with well
equipped laboratories and extensive animal holding facilities, provides students
an opportunity to use modern molecular genetic techniques to manipulate
infectious agents or their hosts, and to subsequently evaluate the impact of
that manipulation in the host, using a variety of animal species. The
combination of faculty expertise in molecular biology and the availability of
animal systems at one institution provides a unique opportunity for graduate
students. In addition, important courses are available that provide students
with a basic understanding of infectious agents, host responses, and host
pathogen interactions. The availability of faculty research expertise, excellent
equipment resources, and pertinent course offerings is laid on the framework of
specific graduate program guidelines that provide graduate students with a road
map for successful and timely completion of their graduate program. Inquiries
should be made to: Dr. Thomas R. Klei, Associate Dean for Research and Advanced
Studies, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge,
LA 70803, klei@mail.vetmed.lsu.edu. For
general information on graduate studies at LSU SVM, see The Advanced Studies Program.
Faculty
(Click on link for biography and areas of research.)
The infectious disease faculty of the Louisiana
State University School of Veterinary Medicine is in the forefront of research
in the national need area of animal biotechnology. As the research area section
indicates, projects on the pathogenesis of infectious diseases in animals
encompass a wide variety of scientific approaches, which offers an enriched
training ground for graduate students. The quality of the faculty and the
program is most clearly indicated by success in obtaining extramural funding. In
summary, current funding of the nine LSU/SVM infectious disease faculty includes
9 USDA National Research Initiative Competitive Grants totaling over $1.2
million; 7 USDA Special Grants totaling $130,450; 4 National Institutes of
Health Grants totaling over $2.2 million; 4 grants from the National Sea Grant
Program totaling $432,893; 9 industry and commodity group grants for $484,348; 6
grants from state agencies for $465,450; 1 grant from the US army for
$1,400,000; and 4 grants from private foundations totaling $165,599. This
amounts to a total of over $6.76 million in extramural funds. The faculty have
used these funds to recruit top quality graduate students, post-doctoral
associates, and research associates whose presence provide an active environment
for scientific interaction.
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Facilities and Research Instrumentation.
Excellent facilities and equipment are available to support
research and train scientists in the pathogenesis of infectious diseases in
animals. Depending on the funding source and the complexity of the equipment, it
is either housed in individual faculty laboratories or in centralized laboratory
units. Regardless of the location, however, cooperation between programs
provides a unique environment in which equipment and facilities are shared
between groups. Although considerable equipment has been provided by state
appropriations, faculty have also been extremely successful in obtaining
extramural equipment grants from a variety of sources, including the Louisiana
Education Quality Support Fund, the USDA, and the NIH.
All equipment is available for graduate students use.
All of the infectious disease research faculty
have extensive space and state of the art equipment to conduct modern
bio-technical research. Individual laboratories are equipped with all of the
routine equipment to conduct experiments in molecular genetics, including
specialized equipment like hybridization ovens, transblot equipment, and
thermocyclers. Additional specialized equipment available to all laboratories
includes a sonicator, a lyophilizer, shaking incubators, two superspeed and two
ultraspeed centrifuges, an ELISA plate washer, a computer driven ELISA reader, a
Savant Speed-Vac centrifuge, a gel dryer, a Beckman 640 spectrophotometer, an
ultraviolet cross linking cabinet, and a Perkin-Elmer QPCR 5000 for quantitative
PCR determinations.
Larger, more expensive equipment is available in
the various centralized facilities available at the School of Veterinary
Medicine. These facilities include
BioMMED, the
Microscopy Center, the Cell Culture
and Monoclonal Antibody Lab, and the Flow Cytometry
Laboratory. Although participating faculty are responsible for
overseeing the function of these facilities, each lab has a state-funded,
full-time instructor or research associate responsible for the technical
operation of the equipment. These personnel provide experience and technical
expertise that is invaluable to our graduate students. Extensive animal holding
facilities are available for research animals. The Division
of Laboratory Animal Medicine (DLAM) of the LSU/SVM regulates all animal
research at Louisiana State University. DLAM and its facilities are accredited
by the American Association for the Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC).
This facility and supporting staff assist researchers in acquiring, conditioning
and maintaining animals used in research. The facility contains 15,460 sq. ft.
of small animal holding space, 5,550 sq. ft. of large animal holding space, and
5300 sq. ft. is for aquatic species. Large animals are housed at the LSU/SVM, on
Central Station pastures or in two barns designed to maintain disease free
livestock. DLAM also maintains a BL3-level biocontainment facility that complies
with published BL3-level containment standards. Aquatic animal facilities
include the Aquatic Pathobiology Lab, a 4000 ft2 facility with 9 wet
labs and two dry labs. Wet labs are equipped with numerous 120-L fiberglass and
20-L plastic tanks, and have water temperature and photo-period control. In
addition, the facilities of the Aquaculture Research Station are available as
needed.
Louisiana State University has several libraries
of importance to students in the biological sciences. Middleton Library, the
main library, has greater than 2,400,000 volumes, 3,500,000 volumes on microfilm
and 7,000,000 manuscripts. Special collections related to chemistry,
biochemistry and chemical engineering are located at the Chemistry Library in
Williams Hall. The Veterinary Medicine Library,
located in the School of Veterinary Medicine, has holdings of over 40,000
volumes and currently subscribes to over 1000 scientific journals and
periodicals dealing with subjects related to animal biotechnology, molecular
biology, immunology, virology, genetics, aspects of veterinary medicine,
comparative medicine and animal sciences. The library also has the computerized
literature retrieval services, MEDLINE, VetCD and BEAST, on CD-ROM , with
MEDLINE available through the network. In addition, the library is served by
LALINK, a computer network consisting of all the libraries in the State of
Louisiana.
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Computer
Resources.
All laboratories and offices are equipped with
PC-compatible computers and printers that are hardwired into the LSU computer
network. Several software programs for evaluation of molecular and sequence data
are available, including Plasmid Enhance (Scientific and Educational Software,
State Line, PA) and to PCGene (Intelligenetics). These computers also provide
network access to the Wisconsin Package (Genetics Computer Group, Madison, WI)
on a constellation of micro-Vax computers in the Department of Biochemistry. In
addition, the Veterinary Computer Resources unit maintains a computer lab for
graduate students containing 10 Pentium 400 PCs that are all connected to the
network.
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PBS
7001
Seminar: Veterinary Medical Sciences (1)
Reports and discussions of new developments in veterinary bacteriology,
immunology, parasitology and virology; emphasis on infectious disease
research. Students are required to take this course 2 times, once early in
their program of study to present a research proposal and once at the end of
their program to present their completed studies.
PBS
7002
Veterinary Medical Research Techniques
(1-4) Specialized research techniques related to a specific discipline of
veterinary microbiology and parasitology. Students will utilize this course in
order to rotate through at least three research laboratories to familiarize
themselves with different experimental approaches and techniques. Students
register for 1-4 hrs per semester, for a maximum of 8 hrs credit.
BIOL 7280 Nucleic Acids (3) Chemistry
and biochemistry of nucleic acids; structure expression, and regulation of
genes in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms.
BIOL 7163 Advanced Technology of Molecular
Biology. (3) Methods in recombinant DNA
procedures; isolation of DNA from prokaryotic or eukaryotic
sources; DNA cloning; restriction mapping and DNA
sequencing.
PBS
7423 Cellular and Molecular Immunology (3) Cellular and molecular basis
for the immune response; emphasis on molecular structure and function of
antibodies and other receptors; role of lymphocyte subsets and cytokines in
regulation of immune responses.
PBS
7417 Immune Response to Infectious and Parasitic Agents (3) Immune
mechanisms in controlling or exacerbating disease caused by bacteria, viruses,
protozoa, helminths, and arthropods; modern principles of vaccine development
and trends in application.
EXST 7004 Experimental Statistics I (3)
Basic concepts of statistical models and samples; measures of variation and
central tendency; normal, t, chi-square, and F distributions; test of
hypothesis, analysis of variance, regression, and correlation; emphasis on
laboratory-oriented sciences research problems; computer software
applications.
EXST 7014 Experimental Statistics II (3)
Multiple classification analysis of variance and covariance, individual
degrees of freedom, factorial arrangement of treatments, and multiple
regressions; emphasis on science/laboratory research problems.
BIOL 4132 Eukaryotic Molecular Genetics
(3) Molecular genetics, primarily in higher
eukaryotes; gene structure and packaging in
chromosomes; gene transcription and mRNA processing;
translation; gene regulation; genetics in development;
genetics of cancer; immunogenetics; genetic engineering in
eukaryotes.
BIOL 4246 Microbial Genetics (3)
Microbial genetic principles; mutation, conjugation, transformation,
recombination, transduction, gene expression, molecular biology of
bacteriophage and plasmids; recombinant DNA technology.
BIOL 4400 Molecular Genetics Laboratory
(3) Current techniques used to genetically engineer microorganisms, study
gene expression and DNA modification, and identify
organisms by specific genetic alleles; computer analysis of DNA and
protein sequences.
BIOL 4450 Molecular Regulation of Cell
Function (3) Molecular organization of eukaryotic cells; gene structure
and function; molecular regulation of signal transduction and cell cycle.
PBS
7003
Special Topics in Veterinary
Medicine (1-4) Topics in veterinary
bacteriology, immunology, molecular biology, parasitology and virology;
emphasis on infectious disease. This course offers the opportunity for
faculty to offer new course material and for graduate students to pursue
independent study under faculty guidance. It is also the umbrella course for
Journal Clubs, which provide students an opportunity to evaluate, analyze
and orally present current scientific literature. Students can enroll for
1-4 credits per semester, for a maximum of 8 credit hours, 2 of which can be
Journal Club, although Journal Club participation is encouraged throughout a
student’s program.
PBS
7411 Molecular Mechanisms of Viral Pathogenesis (3) Virus-host
interactions in disease induction emphasizing virus receptors and cell
tropism, persistence and latency, oncogenesis, virus-induced immune
suppression, and adverse responses of the host.
PBS 7410/BIOL 7289
Biochemistry of Viruses (3) Biochemistry and molecular biology of
representative bacterial, animal, and plant viruses; virus attachment
to and penetration of host cells; replication, transcription, and
translation of viral genes; virion morphogenesis and assembly; virus-induced
host cell modifications; emphasis on structure-function relationships. .
PBS
7432 Cell and Organ Culture Techniques in Biomedical Research (3)
Application of cell and organ culture techniques to current research
problems.
PBS
7413 Cellular and Molecular Immunology Laboratory (3) Laboratory
techniques in modern immunology; isolation, identification, and functional
testing of proteins and cells of the immune system.
PBS
7404 Pathogenic Mechanisms of Bacteria (3) Relation of bacterial
structure and function to the induction of disease: virulence factors,
mechanisms of host-parasite interaction, vaccine strategies.
PBS
7405 Bacterial Pathogenesis Laboratory (1-3) Laboratory techniques
for selected topics in bacterial pathogenesis.
PBS 7415 Current
Experimental Methods in Parasitology (1-4) Specialized laboratory
methods used to produce experimental infections, diagnose
parasitism and recover and identify protozoan and helminth parasites of
ruminants, horses, pigs, and companion animals.
PBS
7419 Population Dynamics and Ecology of Parasitic and Vector-Borne
Diseases (3) Population regulation and distribution
of parasitic and vector-borne diseases of veterinary and medical
significance; disease risk in populations and control strategies based on
population models, transmission dynamics, climate, nutrition, immunity,
geographic information systems, and herd health programs.
PBS
7421 Zoonotic Infections and Parasitic Diseases
(3) Epidemiology, ecology, and control of major
infectious and parasitic zoonoses.
PBS
7301 Principles and Methods of Epidemiology and Disease Control (4)
Ecologic and epidemiologic concepts used in studying diseases in
populations; epidemiologic methods, with laboratory exercises emphasizing
problem solving, epidemiologic principles applied to disease control;
planning, administration, and evaluation of disease-control programs.
PBS
7002 Veterinary Medical Research Techniques: SAS (3) Probability
distributions as models for real-world processes: sampling distributions;
principles of hypothesis testing.
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