This was a study conducted by one of our 1st team members, Jennifer Morrissey. We were interested in trying to understand more about how diet might influence the fluid that provides nutrition to a young horse's developing joint.
The objective of her study was to develop 2-D gel electrophoresis as a tool to be used in understanding how management and nutrition influence the proteome of blood plasma and synovial fluid, with the long term goal of identifying proteins associated with developing articular cartilage in horses.
Here you see an example of one of the gels that jen created as a part of this project. The data generated from these gels helps us to identify proteins or changes in proteins that may be important to the healthy development of cartilage in our young growing horses.
Jen graduated from Penn State in the spring of 2009, and is on her way to becoming a great veterinarian!