She's already packed her limit of three suitcases' worth of kids' books. But there's one book Natalie Carter plans to carry in her hand luggage to peruse during this month's flight to Africa: a Swahili-English dictionary. A master's student in population medicine, she figures the volume will be useful for her planned six-week stay in a remote village in eastern Kenya.

During her second trip to the East African country in as many years, she will divide her time between research and development work.

Carter began graduate studies last fall with Prof. Cate Dewey, chair of Population Medicine. Working with smallholder farmers in Kenya, they are formulating pig rations using locally grown foodstuffs. Many farmers raising up to three pigs on less than two hectares of land need help finding cheap, nutritious feed for their livestock.

That work will see Carter visiting farmers – along with an interpreter – to discuss their lives and livelihoods. She'll be based in a village called Kikule. That's the hometown of her Kenyan collaborator, Florence Mutua, who completed a PhD in Population Medicine last year and now teaches at the University of Nairobi. Together, they will also work with women's groups to help develop small businesses.

Carter plans to stay with Mutua's family during the trip, from mid-June to mid-July.

For more, read the profile in At Guelph.

University of Guelph veterinary students will gain hands-on experience in treating farm animals in a new state-of-the-art facility opened today at the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC).

Supported by a $2.3-million investment from the Ontario Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), the Large Animal Clinical Skills Building is helping prepare Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) students for careers in rural veterinary practice.

"OMAFRA has made a tremendous investment in protecting the health of our animal agriculture industry and in Ontario's rural communities," said Elizabeth Stone, OVC dean. "Student veterinarians will develop critical experience with farm animals in a safe learning environment."

Carol Mitchell, minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs, added: "Our government is proud to support the next generation of veterinarians and animal health experts. This new clinic will contribute to strong, growing livestock and agricultural industries, and support our rural communities."

The 8,300-square-foot facility will provide a bright and flexible space for OVC's large animal learning labs, allowing students and faculty to use modern technology and animal-handling equipment.

Healthy animals will be kept separate from hospitalized patients, ensuring that OVC meets requirements for accreditation by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, the American Veterinary Medical Association, and the standards of the Canadian Council on Animal Care.

Stone said OMAFRA's investment in the clinical skills building is one of many ways that the ministry supports learning through the Veterinary Clinical Education Program. The program funds student veterinarian externships, post-DVM training and graduate programs in the OVC Health Sciences Centre, and stipends for veterinarians enrolled in the master of public health program, and partially funds some faculty and staff salaries.

"This support from OMAFRA is vital to our ability to provide high-quality veterinary clinical education and for protecting and advancing the health of animals, people and the environment, Stone said.

The Large Animal Clinical Skills Building is located next to Barn 37, U of G's historic dairy barn. A separate renovation project funded by OVC and donations has improved the barnyard and added 19 box stalls for horses. OVC and the Ontario Agricultural College both use this facility, which is the last functioning barn on the U of G campus.

"Lock up your bike? Lock up your brain." That's the message of a grad student's guerrilla-marketing campaign about bike helmet safety that caught the eye of population medicine professor Karen Morrison this spring.

"I wanted to promote helmet use among young people," says Sarah Wilmer, who developed the campaign for a communication and leadership course taught by Morrison this past semester in the master of public health program.

For more, see the story in At Guelph.

OVC Prof. David Waltner-Toews was featured on CBC's The National on Tuesday discussing concerns about radiation in food in connection with the recent disaster in Japan. The population medicine professor is an expert in the epidemiology of food and waterborne diseases, zoonoses and ecosystem health. He has also published a number of books including Food, Sex, and Salmonella: Why Our Food is Making Us Sick, which contains a chapter focused on how radioactive contaminants behave in the food chain based on the long term experiences from Chernobyl.

"It's a big, messy approach to dealing with big, messy problems." So says population medicine PhD student Sherilee Harper, a charter member of a new campus club that straddles environmental and human health.

Helping to understand and tackle those "big, messy problems" is the purpose of the Ecohealth Club, formed last fall at Guelph. The new group hopes to recruit members from U of G and beyond, and attract participants to panel discussions and other activities in a growing, cross-disciplinary field.

From the effects of climate change on disease spread to antimicrobial resistance, ecohealth topics extend beyond medicine to include social science, environment, urban design and economics.

Working in Northern Canada and Eastern Africa, for instance, Harper studies the effects of climate change on the quality of drinking water and community health. To do that, she needs to consider not just public health but biodiversity, communities, policy and politics.

"We need to understand the whole system," says Harper, who completed a master's degree in population medicine before beginning her doctorate as a Vanier scholar a year ago. Referring to ecohealth, she says, "It's not a discipline, it's more an approach to research."

For more, see the feature story in At Guelph.

Renovations have begun on new research facilities for the Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses (CPHAZ).

Construction will affect office and laboratory space formerly occupied by the Animal Health Laboratory and Department of Pathobiology at the west end of Building 49. Plans call for the temporary closure of corridor C1105 (adjacent to the former post-mortem viewing area and AHL bacteriology lab).

Throughout construction, students will continue to have access to locker rooms 1131 and 1128 via corridor C1107. It will be accessible from the entrance next to the former AHL administration area, and from the main east-west corridor (corridor C1102) connecting the Small Animal Clinic and the former Department of Pathobiology.

(The east end of corridor C1102 will be closed when construction begins on the Animal Cancer Centre later in the spring. The student locker rooms will still be accessible from the north via the College Avenue entrance to building 49.)

The infrastructure project is scheduled for completion in May. The work is supported by a $1-million grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) New Initiatives Fund. The funding goes toward equipment and facilities to expand CPHAZ's capacity to conduct state-of-the-art research in animal-related aspects of public health, particularly zoonotic diseases.

CPHAZ offices will remain in McNabb House.

OVC people and programs made local and national headlines this week.

Dr. Cathy Gartley, a theriogenology specialist in the Department of Population Medicine, was quoted in a Monday Globe and Mail story about the second-hand effects of creams containing estrogen, progesterone or testosterone. Gartley discusses how creams and gels made with natural sources of estrogen can affect a pet's hormonal system.

"People don't seem to realize that if it goes through their skin, it could go through their dog's skin too."

Read the full article for more.

Dr. Shane Bateman, director of the Hill's Pet Nutrition Primary Healthcare Centre, is featured in an At Guelph article about the centre and its innovative programs, including an endowed care program expected to be launched next year.

"Pets are now a much different and bigger part of our families. If people have no family or friend or someone to take on care of their family member (pet), then they're looking for other places for that to happen."

Read the feature online in At Guelph for more.

Canada has strengthened its capacity to solve health problems that occur at the intersection of the human and animal worlds with a new cutting-edge research and diagnostic centre that opened today at the University of Guelph.

The Pathobiology and Animal Health Laboratory building will support the growing role of veterinarians in research and teaching in public health, infectious diseases, pathology and immunology.

Researchers working in sophisticated laboratories will diagnose and study a range of animal diseases and pathogenic organisms, from bird flu and SARS to E. coli and West Nile virus. The 126,000-square-foot, four-storey structure also houses a 120-seat lecture theatre, flexible laboratory space, seminar rooms, teaching labs and office space.

The federal and provincial governments have invested approximately $62 million in this project. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada committed $37 million, while the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) contributed $25 million.

"The health and safety of Ontarions and a safe food supply are top priorities for the McGuinty government," said Carol Mitchell, minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

"Our government is pleased to provide funding to the University of Guelph to help support ongoing research activities that preserve consumer confidence, protect against animal disease, and demonstrate our commitment to a competitive and sustainable agri-food industry."

U of G president Alastair Summerlee said the facility places Guelph at the forefront of improving the health of animals, people and the environment. "Here current and future scientists will make and share discoveries that will improve the health and well-being of animals, people and the planet," he said.

"This new building will further our ability to identify both the risks we face and the potential benefits and treatments that can be realized by taking an integrated approach to these questions."

Veterinarians have a great deal to share about health relationships among humans, animals and the environment, added OVC dean Elizabeth Stone.

"About 75 per cent of new and emerging diseases are zoonotic, transmitted from animals to humans and back again. Animal health researchers play an important role in identifying, controlling and understanding this phenomenon," Stone said. "We will use this knowledge to improve the health of animals and the prospects for human health, here and around the world."

As a partner with OMAFRA in the Ontario Animal Health Surveillance Network, the University of Guelph Animal Health Laboratory (AHL) helps maintain healthy animals and safe food in Ontario by providing specialized diagnostic services for veterinarians and public- and private-sector agencies.

The new lab areas include open-concept space that encourages cross-training and staff sharing. Improved facilities also allow for better control of pathogenic organisms, Stone said. "This will greatly improve our biosecurity and biocontainment, to protect both our staff and our clients."

The new building fulfills a key component of OVC's strategic vision, as the college approaches its 150th birthday in 2012. Key initiatives include the OVC Health Sciences Centre with its Companion Animal Medical Complex, Large Animal Medical Complex, Hill's Pet Nutrition Primary Healthcare Centre, animal cancer centre, Equine Sports Medicine and Reproduction Centre, and large-animal isolation unit.

There are plenty of veterinarians in Ottawa but few with clients like Michelle Lem's. For the past seven years, the Guelph DVM grad has provided vet services for the pets of people living on the streets and in homeless shelters.

Now, besides running a busy veterinary outreach program in Canada's capital, she's midway through a master's degree at her alma mater intended to improve lives for homeless and at-risk youths and their pets. Along with population medicine professor and former DVM classmate Jason Coe, Lem is studying the effects of pet ownership on young people who are homeless or at risk. She says this special case of the human-animal bond may affect pet owners' prospects for surviving life on the streets or perhaps finding a way into more stable lives.

An estimated 20 per cent of homeless people, including people moving between the street and shelters, have pets, according to one recent study in Toronto.

Not that you'd learn that by observing people in shelters or visiting food banks or other mission services, says Lem. Those institutions often ban animals, compounding problems for their owners, who often would rather forgo services than abandon their pets. "It's a hidden problem," she says.

For more, see the story in At Guelph.

OVC graduate students took home top honours from last week's North American Conference on Precision Dairy Management in Toronto.

Janet Higginson, a PhD candidate in the Department of Population Medicine, received the AfiMilk Young Scientist Award for her presentation "Validation of a New Pedometry System for Behavioural Research and Lameness Detection in Dairy Cattle."

Her colleague in the department, PhD candidate Cindy Todd, was the runner-up for her work, "Effects of Free-Access Feeding and Milk Replacer Acidification on Calf Performance and Development of Digestive Anatomy."

The awards, each of which comes with a cash prize, are given to encourage excellence in dairy research and communication of results by young investigators.

"Both Janet and Cindy did an excellent job and the University of Guelph was well represented," said Dr. Ken Leslie, Population Medicine, one of the organizers of the inaugural conference. The event highlighted technologies such as robotic milking equipment and sensor-based tools to improve cow health, welfare and productivity.

U of G is a founding partner for the conference. Other OVC presenters included Drs. David Kelton and Stephen LeBlanc.