Hossam El-Sheikh Ali, BVc, DVM, MVSc, a visiting scholar in the laboratory of Barry Ball, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACT, Albert G Clay Endowed Chair in Equine Reproduction at Gluck Equine Research Center, and a faculty member in Mansoura University, Egypt, continues to investigate equine placentitis with special focus on ascending and nocardioform placentitis.

This year, El-Sheikh Ali published one of his projects in the Veterinary Research Journal. In this study, he and his colleges identified the genes and pathways associated with nocardioform placentits. This study contributes to a better understanding of the disease pathophysiology.

El-Sheikh Ali and his colleges published the first review article about Nocardioform Placentitis in the 67th annual convention proceedings of American Association of Equine Practitoners 2021, the world's most comprehensive continuing education event devoted to equine practice. This review provides up-to-date information about the disease, which is intended to provide a comprehensive review on nocardioform placentitis for veterinarians and farm managers.

Pouya Dini, PhD, a faculty member at University of California, Davis, and a former scholar with the Gluck’s reproduction team, presented this review in the 67th annual convention of AAEP 2021.

Since there is no sensitive and specific biomarker available to diagnose and predict nocardioform placentitis, El-Sheikh Ali is investigating the equine serum proteomics during nocardioform placentitis compared to normal mares to identify specific serum biomarkers for nocardioform placentitis with subsequent development or validation of an ELISA or on-farm screening test to measure this biomarker(s) with subsequent improvement of our diagnostic tools.

The full paper “Veterinary Research” can be accessed here: https://veterinaryresearch.biomedcentral.com/.../s13567...

The full Review “AAEP 2021” can be accessed here:

https://aaep.org/convention-proceedings

https://www.researchgate.net/.../356944815_Nocardioform...

The Virtual Workshop on Nocardioform Placentitis: https://gluck.ca.uky.edu/.../nocardioform_placentitis...