Alumnus honored for papers in national journals
Dr. Corey Fisher, a member of the UF College of Veterinary Medicine’s Class of 2021, has recently been honored with awards from key national journals for papers he wrote while a student at the college.
He was the 2022 recipient of the inaugural Outstanding American Journal of Veterinary Research Student Manuscript award from AJVR for his paper, “Effects of a flotation vest and water flow rate on limb kinematics of Siberian Huskies swimming against a current.” The results of the competition were announced July 29 during the annual meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association in Philadelphia.
“The study measured the range of motion in dogs’ legs while they swam in a pool against an adjustable current to help guide current rehabilitation practices, as swimming is a commonly used exercise to increase mobility in dogs with a variety of diseases and injuries,” Fisher said.
The group found that dogs had the greater range of motion in their forelimbs compared to their hindlimbs, when the current flow rate was gradually increased, and when the dogs were not supported with a flotation vest.
“These results imply that swimming may be more useful for rehabilitation of forelimbs injuries than hindlimb injuries, and that when designing rehabilitation swimming protocols, dogs should initially wear a flotation vest swimming against a low current flow rate and gradually progress to higher current flow rates without a flotation vest to achieve maximum range of motion for both front and hind limbs,” Fisher said. “We hope that veterinary rehabilitation centers can use these results to design more effective swimming protocols for dogs to improve their recovery and long-term mobility.”
Dr. Richard Hill, a professor of small animal internal medicine at the college, nominated Fisher for the award and mentored him in the project.
“I am especially proud of Dr. Fisher because he completed much of this study while working in my lab, mostly on his own initiative as a pre-veterinary biology student, then went on to complete the data analysis and writing during his veterinary training,” Hill said.
Fisher also received the Andrew Higgins Prize from The Veterinary Journal for a paper he authored while a student as part of the Florida Veterinary Scholars Program.
He wrote the paper under the mentorship of Dr. Keijiro Shiomitsu, an associate professor and chief of the radiation oncology service.
The prize recognizes Dr. Andrew Higgins, who was editor and subsequently editor-in-chief of The Veterinary Journal from 1990 to 2015. Higgins established the prize in 1992 as the Junior Scientist Prize and it was renamed the Andrew Higgins Prize in 2016, according to the journal’s website. The award is meant as encouragement to younger workers, and is given to the best paper published during the year whose principal author is a graduate within five years of his or her first degree.
Fisher and Shiomitsu, an associate professor and chief of the radiation oncology service, worked together on the article, titled “Evaluation of Ponatinib in vitro effect in three canine mast cell tumor cell lines expressing FGFR-1, PDGFR-α, and VEGFR-2.”
The study evaluated a new tyrosine kinase inhibitor drug, Ponatinib, that has potential to be an effective treatment for canine mast cell tumors. The research was focused on investigating the effects of Ponatinib on three different cell lines of canine mast cell tumors in vitro and found promising results with cancer cell death in all three cell lines. Fisher said the study encourages further research on Ponatinib as a promising chemotherapy agent in the treatment of mast cell tumors in dogs.
“Hopefully one day we can start using it on our canine patients to provide them happier and longer, cancer-free lives,” Fisher said.