Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:56:03 +0000

We have recently had to say a sad Ourevoir to Zofia Lisowski. Zofia graduated Liverpool Veterinary University in July 2008 and made a decision to spend 8 weeks with us before embarking further into her career. Before her initial 8 weeks with us were up, she decided to stay three months, before those three months were up, she had decided to return to us for another five months, after spending a bit of time back in her real world, with her family and boyfriend who were possibly wondering if we had kidnapped her permanently!

On her very first day, not all our in-patients showed their appreciation and welcome to our new volunteer vet with kisses, her first patient decided to show her at speed and with great force, both of the undersides of his hind hooves!

In Zof's own words she describes her first few days in the following way: "Initially, my eyes were out on stalks. I was seeing wounds so horrific, animals coming in to ACE so sick, as they'd been left for a few days, more broken limbs than I'd seen in a lifetime - and all this in my first few days! ... I felt at a loss as to what to do and being a new graduate, I started to feel a bit daunted by what was presented in front of me" But she rolled up her sleeves and got stuck in, in every possible aspect.

By the time she had left us, without the comfort of all that a UK veterinary practice provides, she had confidently, proficiently, and successfully been conducting surgery's such as: A sinus flap surgery on a donkey with a huge sinus abscess, a shoulder joint flush, both of which were firsts, not only for Zofia, but for ACE too! Plus skin grafts and numerous other procedures.

In between this, her amazing amazing organisation skills came to the fore, and she was helping us to improve and implement procedures within the office, as well as within the veterinary practices, and procedures (very tidy) of recording and notes on in-patients. Zofia was not content to work all day, so she spent nights organising equipment for sterilisation!

She made a number of great friends amongst the humans and patients. I know that 'Jed' will always be in her heart. He was a donkey brought in for euthanasia by his owners, due to a sore on his back that just would not heal. Zofia decided that she wasn't going to give up on him and so Zofia did her first skin graft which was a great success. 'Jed' now lives with one of our staff and regularly brings food to ACE for our inpatients.

We all wish her the very best in her career, and have no doubt that she will not only go on to be an incredibly successful equine veterinarian, but we also hope she will remain a regular visitor to us, here at ACE. She has left a lasting impression with us and I know ACE has with her, (the skin staples have now been removed and all has healed well!)

I have searched for words to describe and portray my thanks to Zof, in all that she has done for ACE, the animals, and for me, but I cannot find them, or at least words that will do justice for all she has done for us through some quite testing of times. A mere "huge thank you" just doesn't do her contributions and support justice. But THANK YOU Zof, a life long friend to ACE and to me. X

© The American Genetic Association. 2009. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

A Candidate Gene Study of Canine Joint Diseases

From Division of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh, Roslin EH25 9RG, UK (Clements and Barnes); the Centre for Integrated Genomic Medical Research, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, UK (Clements, Short, and Ollier); the Musculoskeletal Research Group, School of Veterinary Science, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZJ, UK (Kennedy, Innes, and Carter); the East Neuk Veterinary Clinic, St Monans, Fife KY10 2DW, UK (Ferguson); the Weighbridge Referral Centre, Swansea SA6 8QF, UK (Butterworth); the Fitzpartick Referrals, Farnham, Surrey GU10 2DZ, UK (Fitzpatrick); the Queen Mother Hospital for Small Animals, The Royal Veterinary College, University of London, Hatfield AL9 7TA, UK (Pead); and the Division Companion Animal Science, The University of Glasgow Veterinary School, Glasgow G61 1QH, UK (Bennett)

Address correspondence to Dylan N. Clements at the address above, or e-mail: dylan.clements{at}ed.ac.uk.

Canine osteoarthritis (OA) commonly occurs in association with articular diseases, such as hip dysplasia (HD), elbow dysplasia (ED), or cranial cruciate ligament rupture (CCLR). We hypothesized that a common genomic risk for the development of canine joint disease and canine OA would be identified by evaluating the allele frequencies of candidate gene single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in dogs with OA associated with different articular diseases when compared with a general population of breed-matched dogs. DNA was extracted from blood samples obtained from Labrador Retrievers and Golden Retrievers surgically treated for ED, HD, and CCLR and confirmed to have radiographic evidence of OA. One hundred and thirteen SNPs in 20 candidate genes were genotyped. No significant associations were identified for SNPs or haplotypes in the candidate genes for the diseases evaluated. The candidate gene approach for the study of genetic association is unlikely to be successful for complex canine diseases such as OA without prior trait mapping evaluation.

Key Words: association • canine • gene • joint • osteoarthritis

Corresponding Editor: Elaine Ostrander

Received December 24, 2008
Revised August 29, 2009
Accepted September 25, 2009

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