The Florida Legislature has armed the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine with financial support to wage a battle against a devastating neurological disorder that afflicts horses.

“The college is launching an all-out assault on EPM,” said Dr. Charles Courtney, associate dean for research and graduate studies at the UF veterinary college.

EPM stands for equine protozoal myeloencephalitis, an infectious disease caused by a microscopic protozoan parasite and which affects an estimated 60 percent of all equine cases presented with neurologic disease at UF’s Alec P. and Louise H. Courtelis Equine Teaching Hospital.

The Legislature appropriated $128,000 for EPM research and $172,000 for other projects at the veterinary school that are designed to improve the health and quality of life of race horses and greyhounds. The funding, which represents an increase of $50,000 over last year, comes from the state’s Pari-mutuel Wagering Trust Fund.

A selection committee consisting of faculty from both the veterinary college and the College of Agriculture ranked the 18 submitted proposals, recommending that 11 be funded. The Legislature then approved the committee’s recommendations.

John Dame and Dr. Siobhan Ellison will continue to investigate the basic biology of the parasite that causes EPM in horses. Their research will provide valuable new tools that will help scientists better understand the biology of this parasite, including tools that may lead to the development of a new vaccine for this disease.

Dame and Ellis Greiner, continue their efforts to understand how the parasite that causes EPM is transmitted in Florida. While opossums are likely to blame for transmitting the disease to horses, it remains to be determined how they become infected in the first place.

Dr. Maureen Long and her colleagues will evaluate a new method of raising the parasite in special strains of laboratory mice. If successful, this technique will reduce the cost of working with this organism while allowing researchers to learn more about its biology and investigate new treatment strategies.

Robert Mackay and Dr. Susan Tanhauser, will develop an improved method for diagnosing EPM in horses that eliminates the many false positive results seen with the currently available tests. This will reduce the number of horses receiving unneeded, and expensive, treatment for EPM.

In other projects, Eugene Goldberg and his colleagues will evaluate the use of a new treatment that is expected to reduce the occurrence of one of the major complications of surgery to correct colic in horses, abdominal adhesions (the tendency for horses’ intestines to stick to one another.) If successful, this treatment will reduce death losses and hasten the time when horses can return to training or breeding.

Jorge Hernandez and his colleagues will investigate the degree to which the use of horseshoes with toe grabs increases the risk of serious injury during a horse race and to what extent toe grabs actually improve racing performance.

Dr. Stacy Andrew and Dr. Dennis Brooks will investigate the normal bacteria and fungi inhabiting the eye of horses at different seasons in the year. Eye ulcers resulting from infections are a common problem on horse farms in Florida and, when severe, can cause loss of training time. More information is needed about which bacteria normally are present in the eyes of horses at different times of the year to help veterinarians choose which drugs are best for treating eye ulcers.

Sandi Lieb will evaluate the suitability of some of the newer varieties of grass hay for horses. Many Florida horsemen choose to import hay from out of state at great expense, due to the low quality of our locally available hays. The identification of a locally grown, high quality grass hay would greatly reduce the cost of breeding and training racehorses in Florida.

Dr. Betsy Uhl and Guy Lester will investigate some of the mechanisms whereby horses’ lungs become inflamed following infection. The data gathered may lead to the development of new drugs to reduce this inflammation and speed recovery.

One of the funded projects affects racing greyhounds.

Andrew Rapoff and his colleagues will evaluate the feasibility of using lasers to prepare holes to accommodate screws used to repair severe bone fractures in racing greyhounds, and whether this technique will allow greyhounds to return to training more quickly following fracture repair.