By Krisy Gashler
As a veterinarian, Dr. Sabine Mann, Ph.D. ’16, had frequently wished for a simple, accurate, affordable test that could assess inflammation in dairy cow herds. Once inflammation becomes severe enough to cause disease, like mastitis in the mammary glands or metritis in the uterus, animals suffer and farmers lose money. Catching lower-level or chronic inflammation earlier would help keep animals healthy and farms productive.
So Mann, an associate professor in the department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, joined forces with two colleagues to create the tests she needs. Over the past seven years, they have developed an assay that can detect three different cytokines – proteins that regulate immune response in cows and are more abundant in samples when inflammation is present. Now the team is working to expand the panel to include chemokines, proteins that control cell trafficking and direct white blood cells to areas with infected or damaged tissue.
“Cows with excessive, chronic inflammation produce less milk; they may not be able to reproduce as quickly, or they may be more susceptible to disease,” Mann said. “So this kind of undiagnosed inflammation can lead to less efficient and less sustainable dairy farms and less milk in our food supply. We want to be able to detect inflammation before we even have a disease diagnosis – that’s the time where we think we have the most potential for improvement, at a herd level.”