🎃 NC State College of Veterinary Medicine students are getting into the fall spirit, and hosted a community-focused Howl-O-Ween 5K Fun Run and Walk! The Student American Veterinary Medical Association showcased their leadership skills and put on the dog-friendly, costumed fun run to support local adoption efforts — just one way our future veterinarians are leading the pack and giving back to North Carolina.

“People reach out to us because they know that if they have a question, we can take it from the beginning to the end.”

What Dr. Xinxia Peng and his lab bring to a plethora of potentially life-changing projects is a rarity: a truly interdisciplinary team with the expertise to both conduct wet-lab experiments with various biological samples and to provide the dry-lab bioinformatics computations on genetic codes within those samples that lead to biological discoveries.

A professor of infectious diseases at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine, Peng is an expert on genomics and bioinformatics and has developed research partnerships with scientists across the state and country. Most recently, he’s received two NIH grants, one partnering with Duke researching organ transplants and the other with an NC State scientist studying uterine function.

At its most basic, bioinformatics is a field that combines computer science, mathematics and biology to analyze and interpret complex biological data like DNA and protein sequences.

Peng’s investigations include trying to understand the role genetics play in how an individual patient responds to immunity-related therapeutics.

“At an educational institution, setting up this interdisciplinary research, both in terms of actual research and the group members, so that it makes us a place that people will come and say, ‘Hey, we want to collaborate,’” he said, “to me is really very satisfying.”

Learn more at the link in our bio.

https://go.ncsu.edu/peng

Children and teens of all ages gathered at NC State for Horseman`s Youth Day! 🐎

The Student Chapter of the American Association of Equine Practitioners hosted the event at our Reedy Creek Equine Farm in Raleigh, running hands-on workshops on anatomy, farriery (applying horseshoes), internal medicine, dentistry, emergency care and sports medicine.

With a nationwide shortage of equine practitioners, Horseman’s Youth Day is just one way NC State and our students engage with the community to build interest in becoming a veterinarian. 🩺

Our third-year students have returned from veterinary practices all over the country — part of the new DVM curriculum that provides veterinary students with additional hands-on experience prior to their fourth-year rotations.

Unlike summer externships where students send out applications and interview for positions, NC State does the legwork securing these four-week preceptorships.

Locking down arrangements for more than 100 students at the same time may sound daunting, but our doctors-to-be are in high demand, and over 225 practices wanted to participate.

The class of 2028 spread out across 27 states and 60 North Carolina counties. Students spent four days each week working with clients and one day journaling and attending Zoom seminars with fellow class members.

Upon returning, the students attended a debrief to share feedback on the experience, and they will give presentations on their work later this fall.

Read about some of their experiences here: https://go.ncsu.edu/2028-preceptorships

Whether they grew up in the saddle or have never stepped foot in a barn, a group including many of our first-year veterinary students took to the field to learn and refine important safety techniques with NC State’s equine experts and horses.

Organized by NC State’s Student Chapter of the American Association of Equine Practitioners and led by professionals at our Reedy Creek Equine Farm, this lab taught our students safe practices for approaching and standing around horses, the basics of grooming and leading, and proper technique for picking up a horse’s hoof.

Equine medicine is one of five specialty areas our veterinary students can focus in, and extracurricular events like this are important to help foster interest in large animal medicine — an area with a growing shortage of veterinarians.

NC State is committed to addressing that shortage.

To that end, we’re investing heavily in the future of equine medicine. Our new large animal veterinary center will be a state-of-the-art facility for training the next generation of large animal practitioners and will elevate the world-class care we already provide for the entire region.

Go to the link in our bio to learn how we`re building that future, together.

https://go.ncsu.edu/lavc

Today marks 45 years since the first class of veterinary students arrived at NC State’s new School of Veterinary Medicine — what it was called until it and many other NC State “schools” were designated colleges six years later.

The class of 40 students, all from North Carolina, would go on to become the state’s first locally trained veterinarians since the establishment of modern accreditation. Prior to the opening of our college, the state government had to make arrangements to send students elsewhere in the country to receive formal veterinary education.

Now, NC State is among the top veterinary colleges in the country and attracts students and faculty from all over the world.