Vet Aspire 2017-1018

We kicked off our VetAspire program for the 2017-2018 academic year with our first session on Friday, September 29.
VetAspire is a program designed for students to spend the day at MSU-CVM. Each month, students have the opportunity to participate in clinics, lectures, and hands-on activities. We cap this program at approximately five students per session, providing attendees with an exceptional hands-on learning experience. The goal of this program is to expose students to th...
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MSSTATE-Our People-Margaret Khaitsa

Growing up in Uganda, Margaret Khaitsa always excelled in the sciences, and she became one of few young women to study chemistry and biology in her advanced high school. She expected to go into agriculture, but changed her career focus when she qualified to study veterinary medicine at Makerere University.
Today, she is a professor of international veterinary epidemiology in Mississippi State’s College of Veterinary Medicine. She earned a master’s degree at University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom and a doctoral degree at The Ohio State University before working for a decade on faculty at North Dakota State University. She was attracted to MSU in 2013, soon after she attended a university conference on food security. She was impressed by MSU’s strategic goal of globalization, along with its relationship with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
“That aligned really well with what I was doing,” said Khaitsa, referring to a USAID-funded project she was working on in “Capacity building in Integrated Management of Transboundary Animal Diseases and Zoonosis –CIMTRADZ” in East Africa. read more...

Leo the Lab Finds Healing at CVM-MSU

MSU College of Veterinary Medicine DVM-PhD Student Selected to Present at NIH Veterinary Sciences Technology Colloquium

Dr. Jim Nichols, a DVM-PhD student at the Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine, had an abstract selected and was invited to present his research at the 1^st National Training Colloquium for Combined DVM-PhD (VSTP) and Comparative Biomedical Scientists held at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Natcher Center in Bethesda, Maryland on August 3, 2017.

Out of 26 DVM-PhD students who submitted abstracts to the colloquium, Nichols was chosen as one of six selected to present his research to an audience of PhD students and administrators from universities around the country. 

Nichols’ abstract focuses on how Cannabidiol, a drug being investigated to treat epilepsy in children, can also be used successfully to treat multiple sclerosis. He conducts research under the supervision of his PhD mentor, assistant professor Dr. Barbara Kaplan, who was excited to hear Nichols was selected to present at the prestigious event. “I was thrilled,” Kaplan said. “It really says a lot for the work he is doing. It shows what we’re doing in the lab, and shows people from other universities the quality of work we do in our veterinary PhD program.”

Nichols was honored to present the research he is so passionate about to such a prominent audience of researchers. “It felt really great to be chosen to present to my colleagues, who are DVM-PhD students, to present to the heads of other universities’ PhD programs, and to present to NIH members,” Nichols said. “It was a great opportunity.” Of the eight students currently participating in the College’s combined DVM-PhD program, three attended the NIH colloquium. Dr. Brittany Szafran, a DVM-PhD student who also works under Kaplan, attended and had a research abstract accepted into the colloquium’s abstract book, and Dr. Courtney Hunter, another DVM-PhD student, attended the colloquium as well.