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Equine Science: Weekly News and Trivia Question - November 6, 2009
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Equine Science News blog – this week’s been a busy one for research news, so this post will be a quick overview of all the latest topics.
Many owners shoe their horses without a second thought, but ‘barefoot’ is slowly becoming more common place and now the public in the UK are being encouraged to comment on new standards for barefoot trimming. This comes after concerns have been raised about practitioners of ‘equine barefoot care’ (as it will now be known) from vets and farriers.
There are currently about 21 barefoot groups in the UK, and now the “national occupational standards” (NOS) is being developed to set a level for such practitioners to aspire to. According to Horse & Hound Online, the NOS will not be a legal requirement.
The NOS have been developed by Lantra, a land-based skills agency, and they’re now inviting anyone interested in equine barefoot care to get involved in their consultation, which ends on 16 November. Their draft standards are claimed to highlight the important of nutrition, the environment the horse is kept in, exercise and also trimming. If you’re interested in participating in the consultation visit the official website here.
Today it was reported in the journal Science that an international team of researchers have completed the genome sequence of the domestic horse. This sequence is important for improvements in equine breeding and is also important for the understanding of some human diseases.
The research for this genome sequence found that there are more than 90 hereditary conditions that affect both humans and horses, including inflammatory diseases and infertility. Understanding these equine diseases are important for modelling similar human diseases.
James Murray, a researcher at University of California, Davis is reported on ScienceCodex to have said: "Having access to multiple genome sequences makes it easier to understand all genomes, including our own. By looking at the horse genome, we can better understand human biology and human diseases."
Researchers also made an interesting discovery on equine chromosome 11 – they found a new key structural feature, a new centromere, which could provide further information about how chromosomes move when cells divide. The work should also prove useful for understanding genetic conditions such as equine cerebella abiotrophy a neurological condition that is found in Arabian horses.
Equine research is also helping human science in other ways – scientists studying the equine influenza virus have managed to create a model which might prove useful for understanding outbreaks of ‘flu in humans. Researchers from the University of Georgia used equine influenza to work out how likely an outbreak of influenza would be in a population that had all been vaccinated with the same strain of the virus.
I’ve talked before in this blog about the important of stem cells in treating some equine conditions and now in the UK the first authorized equine stem cell centre is open for business.
VetCell Bioscience has been authorised under the Veterinary Medicines Regulations to collect, store, process and supply stem cells suitable for treating injured tendons or ligaments. However the stem cells will only be available to the original donor who can have millions of stem cells implanted directly into the site of injury.
At the end of 2008 the Veterinary Medicines Directorate introduced new regulations regarding the provision of stem cells back to the donor animal and now after a rigorous series of inspections VetCell was authorised as an equine stem cell centre.
Stem cell treatment is also an area of growing interest within the field of human science – studies into the treatment of Achilles injuries with stem cells could begin next year.
Finally, here is this week’s trivia question:
What was the breed of the first ever cloned horse in 1993?
1. Morgan
2. Throughbred
3. Quarterhorse
4. Haflinger
The answer can be found on my profile page here.
Many owners shoe their horses without a second thought, but ‘barefoot’ is slowly becoming more common place and now the public in the UK are being encouraged to comment on new standards for barefoot trimming. This comes after concerns have been raised about practitioners of ‘equine barefoot care’ (as it will now be known) from vets and farriers.
An image of the bottom of a hoof - Copyright of Alex Brollo, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License
There are currently about 21 barefoot groups in the UK, and now the “national occupational standards” (NOS) is being developed to set a level for such practitioners to aspire to. According to Horse & Hound Online, the NOS will not be a legal requirement.
The NOS have been developed by Lantra, a land-based skills agency, and they’re now inviting anyone interested in equine barefoot care to get involved in their consultation, which ends on 16 November. Their draft standards are claimed to highlight the important of nutrition, the environment the horse is kept in, exercise and also trimming. If you’re interested in participating in the consultation visit the official website here.
Today it was reported in the journal Science that an international team of researchers have completed the genome sequence of the domestic horse. This sequence is important for improvements in equine breeding and is also important for the understanding of some human diseases.
The research for this genome sequence found that there are more than 90 hereditary conditions that affect both humans and horses, including inflammatory diseases and infertility. Understanding these equine diseases are important for modelling similar human diseases.
James Murray, a researcher at University of California, Davis is reported on ScienceCodex to have said: "Having access to multiple genome sequences makes it easier to understand all genomes, including our own. By looking at the horse genome, we can better understand human biology and human diseases."
Researchers also made an interesting discovery on equine chromosome 11 – they found a new key structural feature, a new centromere, which could provide further information about how chromosomes move when cells divide. The work should also prove useful for understanding genetic conditions such as equine cerebella abiotrophy a neurological condition that is found in Arabian horses.
Equine research is also helping human science in other ways – scientists studying the equine influenza virus have managed to create a model which might prove useful for understanding outbreaks of ‘flu in humans. Researchers from the University of Georgia used equine influenza to work out how likely an outbreak of influenza would be in a population that had all been vaccinated with the same strain of the virus.
I’ve talked before in this blog about the important of stem cells in treating some equine conditions and now in the UK the first authorized equine stem cell centre is open for business.
VetCell Bioscience has been authorised under the Veterinary Medicines Regulations to collect, store, process and supply stem cells suitable for treating injured tendons or ligaments. However the stem cells will only be available to the original donor who can have millions of stem cells implanted directly into the site of injury.
At the end of 2008 the Veterinary Medicines Directorate introduced new regulations regarding the provision of stem cells back to the donor animal and now after a rigorous series of inspections VetCell was authorised as an equine stem cell centre.
Stem cell treatment is also an area of growing interest within the field of human science – studies into the treatment of Achilles injuries with stem cells could begin next year.
Finally, here is this week’s trivia question:
What was the breed of the first ever cloned horse in 1993?
1. Morgan
2. Throughbred
3. Quarterhorse
4. Haflinger
The answer can be found on my profile page here.
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