“Biomarkers in a One Health perspective: current knowledge of their ability to merge human and animal health

Biomarkers are nowadays essential tools to be one step ahead for fighting disease, enabling an enhanced focus on disease prevention and on the probability of its occurrence. Research in a multidisciplinary approach has been an important step towards the repeated discovery of new biomarkers. Biomarkers are defined as biochemical measurable indicators of the presence of disease or as indicators for monitoring disease progression. Currently, biomarkers have been used in several domains such as oncology, neurology, cardiovascular, inflammatory and respiratory disease, and several endocrinopathies. Bridging biomarkers in a One Health perspective has been proven useful in almost all of these domains. In oncology, humans and animals are found to be subject to the same environmental and genetic predisposing factors: examples include the existence of mutations in BR-CA1 gene predisposing to breast cancer, both in human and dogs, with increased prevalence in certain dog breeds and human ethnic groups. Also, breast feeding frequency and duration has been related to a decreased risk of breast cancer in women and bitches. When it comes to infectious diseases, this parallelism is prone to be even more important, for as much as 75% of all emerging diseases are believed to be zoonotic. Examples of successful use of biomarkers have been found in several zoonotic diseases such as Ebola, dengue, leptospirosis or West Nile virus infections. Acute Phase Proteins (APPs) have been used for quite some time as biomarkers of inflammatory conditions. These have been used in human health but also in the veterinary field such as in mastitis evaluation and PRRS (porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome) diagnosis. Advantages rely on the fact that these biomarkers can be much easier to assess than other conventional disease diagnostic approaches (example: measured in easy to collect saliva samples). Another domain in which biomarkers have been essential is food safety: the possibility to measure exposure to chemical contaminants or other biohazards present in the food chain, which are sometimes analytical challenges due to their low bioavailability in body fluids, is nowadays a major breakthrough. Finally, biomarkers are considered the key to provide more personalized therapies, with more efficient outcomes and fewer side effects. This approach is expected to be the correct path to follow also in veterinary medicine, in the near future.

Clínica médica e cirúrgica em espécies pecuárias e equinos

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo a descrição das atividades desenvolvidas no âmbito do estágio curricular do Mestrado Integrado em Medicina Veterinária pela Universidade de Évora. Numa primeira parte é apresentada a casuística acompanhada ao longo do estágio, com referência mais pormenorizada a alguns casos clínicos acompanhados nas diversas áreas de intervenção: clínica médica e cirúrgica de espécies pecuárias e equinos. A segunda parte deste relatório é composta por uma revisão bibliográfica sobre os temas “exame neurológico em equinos”, “ síndrome do poldro lavanda” e “vírus do Nilo ocidental”. Na última parte serão relatados de três casos clínicos acompanhados neste âmbito; Clinical medical and surgery in livestock species and horses Abstract: The current report describes the activities developed during the Curricular externship as parts of the Veterinary Medicine Integrated Masters from University of Evora. The first part includes the casuistry that took place along the externship, giving enphasis to some of the clinical cases assessed in different livestock species and equine clinic areas. The second part presents a literature review approaching “neurologic examination in horses”, “lavender foal syndrome” and “west Nile vírus” as its main themes. For the ending part there are described three clinical cases followed during the externship.