In recent years equine veterinarians have lauded the benefits of fecal egg counts (or FECs) for designing targeted equine deworming programs. While these tests are already fairly simple—collect sample, submit to lab, and await results (which typically arrive in a few days to weeks, depending on the laboratory)—researchers have developed an even easier way: Collect the sample and let your veterinarian’s cell phone do the counting.

At the 2015 American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Convention, held Dec. 5-9 in Las Vegas, Paul Slusarewicz, PhD, shared how he and colleagues determined this was possible and what steps went into developing the final product. Slusarewicz is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Kentucky’s (UK) Gluck Equine Research Center and the chief scientific officer and co-founder of MEP Equine Solutions, both in Lexington.

Fecal egg counts are a mainstay of clinical parasitology. They help veterinarians and horse owners confirm a horse’s parasite burden and shedding status, allowing them to deworm based only on need. But these tests have remained relatively unchanged despite a recent revolution in molecular science, Slusarewicz explained. He and his colleagues sought to explore this technology and create a stall-side test to detect eggs in feces.

The first step, he said, was to identify a universal egg marker (UEM), which is present on all parasite eggs that would allow software to detect the eggs amidst the rest of the debris in a sample. Slusarewicz determined that a carbohydrate called chitin—which is also present in shellfish, insects, and fungi, he said—could potentially serve as that UEM, but no one had suggested this could be a universal component of parasite eggs