The past few years saw many faculty changes at the University of Kentucky’s Gluck Equine Research Center and Equine Initiative. Additions to the Gluck Center included a new Department of Veterinary Science chair and director, a new Gluck Equine Research Foundation executive director, and the loss of a longtime faculty member. Three new faces joined the Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center (LDDC). In the Equine Initiative, the past year saw the addition of Jamie MacLeod, VMD, PhD, Director of the UK Equine Initiative and Dickson Professor of Equine Science and Management (more on MacLeod below). Additionally, new equine-specific faculty were hired in Agricultural Economics and Animal and Food Sciences.

Changes in the Gluck Center
In summer 2008, Mats Troedsson, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACT, became the new director of the Gluck Equine Research Center and chair of the Department of Veterinary Science. Troedsson replaced Peter Timoney, FRCVS, PhD, who was chair of the Department of Veterinary Science from 1989 to 1999 and 2002 to 2008. However, Timoney did not leave the Gluck Center and is now a full-time research scientist in the infectious diseases and immunology program.

Troedsson’s previous position at the University of Florida from 2002 to 2008 was as professor and service chief for reproduction in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Prior to his tenure in Florida, Troedsson was at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Clinical and Population Sciences.

Troedsson, who joined the reproduction program at the Gluck Center, received his veterinary degree in Sweden and his PhD at the University of California, Davis.

A few months after Troedsson began at the Gluck Center, another faculty member joined the reproduction program as a research scientist. Ed Squires, MS, PhD, Hon. Dipl. ACT, who spent 33 years on the faculty at Colorado State University, came on board in November 2008 as the Executive Director of the Gluck Equine Research Foundation and Director of Development and Industry Relations.

A native of West Virginia and a graduate of West Virginia University, Squires was inducted into UK’s Equine Research Hall of Fame in 2007. He also is the editor of the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science and has published more than 260 papers, written 30 book chapters, and published 14 textbooks.

In April 2008 longtime faculty member George Allen, PhD, died. Allen had been a professor and faculty member in the Department of Veterinary Science since 1979.

Allen was known to the scientific community as one of the world’s foremost authorities on equine herpesvirus infections in equines.

LDDC Faculty Additions
Cynthia Gaskill, DVM, PhD, joined the LDDC as an analytical toxicologist, associate professor, and veterinary clinical diagnostic toxicologist. Gaskill’s primary duty is to provide an analytical and diagnostic toxicology service for the animal industry in Kentucky. She is also responsible for the establishment and direction of a toxicology laboratory and development of a top-class program in analytical toxicology at the Diagnostic Center.

Gaskill, who worked on several cattle ranches and horse farms in the western United States during her youth, obtained her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Colorado State University and her PhD from Atlantic Veterinary College. After obtaining her PhD, she accepted a tenure track faculty position at Atlantic Veterinary College as a clinical toxicologist.

Alan Loynachan, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVP, is an anatomic veterinary diagnostic pathologist and assistant professor at the LDDC. He works with other LDDC faculty to develop a nationally recognized veterinary pathology program that aids in the reduction of morbidity (illness) and mortality (death) in animals.

Prior to coming to Kentucky, Loynachan was an assistant professor and diagnostic pathologist at Iowa State University, Department of Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine. He was also a pathology consultant for Sirrah-Bios in Ames, Iowa. Loynachan earned his DVM in veterinary medicine in 2003 and his PhD in veterinary microbiology in 2005 from Iowa State University.

As a veterinary diagnostic pathologist and assistant professor at LDDC, Lynne Cassone, DVM, is responsible for helping to reduce loss from disease in Kentucky’s livestock and other animal industries by providing competent and timely diagnostic pathology at the department’s diagnostic center. Duties also include diagnostic gross pathology and histopathology of biopsy and necropsy specimens, mammalian, avian, and reptilian species (approximately 80% of her caseload is equine) and regular participation in resident training.

Cassone earned her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine in 1999 at Texas A&M University. Prior to coming to Lexington in September 2008, Cassone was a staff pathologist at Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory