Published January, 2015

Name: Emily Rubinson
From: Bethesda, Maryland
Degrees and institute where received: BA, Smith College, Massachusetts;
MSc, University of Kentucky

Emily Rubinson wanted to pursue a degree at the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Center so she could apply the molecular and microbiological techniques she had used in human medicine to animals.

“And since I am in Kentucky, I wanted to get some experience with horses,” she said. “I have been fortunate to perform my research under the supervision of Dr. Martin Nielsen (DVM, PhD, Dipl. EVPC, assistant professor at the Gluck Center).”

In Rubinson’s research project, she evaluated the inflammatory reaction to vaccination and whether deworming horses simultaneously with vaccination would affect vaccine efficacy.

Unlike humans, horses are never completely parasite-free, but parasite burdens are largely impacted by the regular deworming treatments often practiced on horse farms. It is also very common to carry out vaccination and deworming on the same day, but Rubinson questioned, “Is the vaccine response altered by deworming?

In recent years research in humans has shown possible beneficial effects of having worm parasites in the gastrointestinal tract, Rubinson said. These worms have been found to reduce and change the inflammatory response and can counteract various allergic conditions, such as asthma.

“We don’t know, however, if similar mechanisms might be in play in the horse,” Rubinson said.

To test the hypothesis, Rubinson said, “we measured the inflammatory response (acute phase proteins, hematology, and cytokines) in response to a combination of three different vaccinations given to yearling ponies. All ponies were vaccinated with the same three vaccines, but one group was dewormed with ivermectin, another with pyrantel pamoate, and the last group was not dewormed.”

Rubinson’s determined that deworming affected horses' inflammatory response to vaccination to some extent, but the vaccine antibody titers (the concentration of specific antibodies in the blood) did not differ significantly between the groups.

“Therefore, our conclusion was that vaccination and deworming can be carried out on the same day without losing vaccination effects,” she said.

Rubinson earned her master’s degree at UK in December. As for the future, she hopes to work in the field of veterinary microbiology, preferably parasitology, and then after a few years go back to school to get her doctoral degree.

Shaila Sigsgaard is an editorial contributor for the Bluegrass Equine Digest.