Pathobiology Department Goal

The Department of Pathobiology consists of faculty and staff members with expertise in various disciplines, including parasitology, microbiology, virology, anatomic and clinical pathology, public health/epidemiology, immunology, and laboratory animal medicine. 聽

With regards to instruction, our goal is to provide students with high quality teaching in the above disciplines to ensure successful development and assimilation of a strong knowledge base for understanding the pathophysiology and distribution of disease. The following methods are used to accomplish this goal: 聽

1. Formal classroom lectures and course syllabi supplemented with multimedia teaching and learning resources (e.g., slides, images, videotapes, and computer-assisted instructional software)

2. Laboratory sessions to provide students with "hands-on" experience and explanatory demonstrations of concepts in pathophysiologic mechanisms

3. Small group clinical rotations to provide students with experience in pathobiology sub-disciplines and in laboratory diagnosis of diseases

4. Tutorials in core courses to provide "one-on-one" faculty-student and student-student interactions, as needed

5. Elective courses to provide highly motivated students the opportunity to gain advanced knowledge beyond the core curriculum

6. Seminar presentations by faculty, graduate students, interns, and guest lecturers to allow dissemination and discussion of research findings

7. Review sessions in core and elective courses

Another department goal is to develop a strong basic and applied research program on the morphologic and molecular levels. The research interests of the faculty in the Department are varied and encompasses the fields of microbiology, molecular biology, immunology, pathology, and toxicology. Specific areas of research interest and activity have included studying diseases of food and companion animals, food borne diseases, animal modeling, and cancer. Faculty are involved in food safety research including the development of rapid and sensitive diagnostic techniques aimed at detecting pathogens in food.

Concerning a third Department goal, faculty members are engaged in diagnostic service support for clinicians in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH) within the Departments of Large Animal Medicine and Small Animal Medicine. Additionally, they provide diagnostic support to funded intramural and extramural research projects and surgical pathology services to regional veterinarians. The veterinary diagnostic services is composed of laboratories of necropsy, histopathology, clinical pathology/parasitology, microbiology, and immunology. The reports generated from these laboratories are critical to accurate clinical diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy in patients. In addition to providing an invaluable service to the college and to the community, the diagnostic service activities of the departmental faculty provide an excellent source of teaching materials. Daily selected clinical cases serve as "hands-on" instructional material for use in a "seminar-type" learning process which greatly enhances the students' diagnostic abilities and understanding of disease processes.