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About The Gluck Center
Many may well wonder what the Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research
Center is, and with good reason. Center officials do not shy
from publicity, and its good works are numerous--but perhaps
its audience has been limited primarily to veterinarians and
other equine researchers.
Succinctly put, it is one of this nation's "small gems"
in the equine research world.
Created in 1987 by officials of the University of Kentucky's
Department of Veterinary Science in Lexington, Kentucky, it
is, in fact, only one of three centers in the world dedicated
exclusively to researching the diseases and physiological
problems of the horse. From the very beginning, Gluck officials
were successful in recruiting some of the top equine researchers
in the nation, among them virologist E. Roger Doll, parasitologist
J. Harold Drudge, and virologist John T. Bryans.
Doll was responsible, along with Gluck researcher Dr. William
H. McCollum, in identifying the disease equine viral arteritis
(EVA), and the two developed a vaccine to prevent it. Drudge
was responsible for research in drug-resistant small strongyles
in horses, which resulted in the development of new treatment
for equine parasites. And Bryans was instrumental in developing
vaccines to prevent strangles, salmonellosis, EVA, and herpes
viral abortion. In fact, six of the 10 most commonly used
vaccines on the market for horses today were developed at
the Gluck Center.
These researchers are but a few of the esteemed scientists
working at Gluck and their accomplishments represent a very
abbreviated list of studies and achievements arising from
the Gluck Center.
More recently, the Office of International des Epizootes
(World Animal Health Organization) has recognized Drs. George
Allen, Thomas Chambers, and Peter Timoney (the current director
of the Gluck Center), as world experts in their fields: herpesvirus
(equine rhinopneumonits), equine influenza, and EVA, respectively.
Today, research continues in the areas of epidemiology, immunogenetics,
infectious diseases, immunology, musculoskeletal sciences,
parasitology, pharmacology and toxicology, and reproductive
physiology. Some of the current studies include those involving
mapping of the equine genome, equine infectious anemia, leptospirosis
and recurrent uveitis (moon blindness), clostridial enterotoxemia
in foals, mare reproductive loss syndrome, the effects of
aging on the horse's immune response, heritable diseases,
fescue toxicosis and other environmental toxicoses, and ELISA
test development for drugs of abuse--among many others.
Information garnered from investigations by the researchers
at the Gluck Center is shared worldwide with practicing veterinarians,
fellow researchers, and with the public.
And scientific findings from the Gluck Center will have benefits
for people as a whole as well. Three studies in particular--investigations
into arthritis, aging and immune response, and retroviral
infections--will have cross-over benefits to the human medical
field.
While the Gluck Center is centrally located in Kentucky's
idyllic bluegrass region, home of some of the nation's most
prosperous Thoroughbred horse farms, work done there is not
restricted to breed nor to the affluence of a horse's owner.
Work done at Gluck is done for the benefit of horses everywhere.
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With each use of The Horseman's Card, a donation is made to the world-renowned
Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center.
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