OVERVIEW
The University of Minnesota, a state land-grant university, is a major research institution, with scholars of national and international reputation, and consistently ranks among the top 20 public universities in the nation. The classic Big 10 campus, located in the heart of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, provides a world-class setting for lifelong learning. The University community is a broad mix of ethnic backgrounds, interests, and cultures. The University has invested over $1 billion in new construction over the last decade, providing state of the art research, medical, and teaching facilities.

The College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) at the University of Minnesota is one of the few in the United States located in the center of a large metropolitan area and in a state that ranks very high in several areas of animal agriculture, including dairy, swine, and turkey production. The College’s faculty is nationally and internationally recognized for teaching and research excellence.


THE COMMUNITY
The campus in Minneapolis is located just a few minutes east of downtown. Nestled along the bluffs of the Mississippi River, buildings in Minneapolis range from the ultramodern Weisman Art Museum to the classic and stately Northrop Memorial Auditorium. A few miles to the east in St. Paul, rolling hills and quiet lawns create a more rural setting. The Minneapolis and St. Paul parts of the campus are connected by a convenient campus shuttle system.

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, also provides a life beyond the campus like few other universities can. The dynamic communities of Minneapolis and St. Paul offer something for everyone—a nationally recognized arts and theater community, a thriving entertainment industry, a host of Fortune 500 companies, four glorious seasons of outdoor recreation, exciting professional sports, shopping, and restaurants for every taste—all located close to campus.

PROGRAMS OF STUDY AND DEGREE REQUIREMENTS
Two graduate programs, Veterinary Medicine (VMED) and Molecular Veterinary Biosciences (MVB), are tailored to the diverse needs and opportunities presented in veterinary and biomedical sciences. Both programs offer the degrees of MS, PhD, and a combined DVM/PhD.

The mission of the VMED Graduate Program is to provide quality graduate education in veterinary medicine. The unique focus of our program is to promote high quality, leading edge research and to train scholars to improve the health and well being of animals and people. The VMED program as a whole is divided into five different tracks: Infectious Disease, Comparative Medicine and Pathology, Population Medicine, Theriogenology, and Surgery/Radiology/Anesthesiology. The program has a long standing history of training graduate students in clinical fields.

The mission of the multidisciplinary MVB graduate program is to train outstanding students in basic and comparative research in mechanisms of animal health and disease. Training emphasis is placed on state-of-the-art technical approaches for discovery and elucidation of a broad spectrum of health and disease problems and applications. Graduates from the MVB program are highly skilled scientists, excellently prepared for research careers in academia and industry. Scientific training will lead to a career as an independent investigator in one of two general areas: Molecular Mechanisms of Pathogenesis (Immunobiology, Microbiology and Virology, Pathology) or Comparative Animal Biomedical Sciences (Genetics and Genomics, Cellular and Molecular Biology, Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology). The MVB graduate program is intercollegiate, consisting of faculty from many departments within the Academic Health Center and the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences. The MVB program brings together both basic and clinical scientists to a) provide students with individualized, cutting edge research training, and b) to help students apply new knowledge to the understanding of animal and human disease. MVB faculty are supported by over grants totaling over $10 million from the National Institutes of Health, the USDA, animal producer groups, and private industry.

FACILITIES AND RESOURCES
The College Veterinary Medicine has outstanding facilities for clinical, laboratory, and large animal research. In addition, program faculty are active members in a variety of research centers that include the Animal Biotechnology Center, the Swine Center, the Avian Research Center, the Raptor Center, the University of Minnesota Equine Center, the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety, the Center for Dairy Health Management and Food Quality, the Swine Disease Eradication Center, and the Mucosal and Vaccine Research Center. These centers promote collaborative efforts among students and faculty.

Research is supported via alignment with core facilities such as the Advanced Genetic Analysis Center (AGAC). This facility provides researchers with immediate access to state-of-the-art services in molecular biology, including sequencing, microarray construction, oligonucleotide synthesis, and high through-put DNA polymorphism detection. In addition, the larger Academic Health Center is home to many research centers and facilities that offer a broad range of services and opportunities, including the Center for Immunology, the Electron Microscopy Facility, the Biomedical Image Processing Facility, the AHC Biomedical Genomics Center, and the University of Minnesota Cancer Center.

EXPENSES AND AID
Tuition rates for the 2005-06 Graduate School are $666.80 per credit for Minnesota residents and $1,613.29 per credit for non-residents. Incoming Ph.D. students are supported during their first year by the MVB Graduate Program with a Research Assistantship position and a tuition waiver. During subsequent years, students are supported financially by their major advisor, identified during their first year of study. Students interested in earning a M.S. must identify, with assistance from the program, a faculty mentor who will support their studies. The VMED program provides support through training grants, fellowships, individual faculty research funds, and government scholarships. The VMED program also has available a limited number of resident positions in the Comparative Medicine and Pathology, Surgery, Radiology, and Anesthesiology tracks, all of which include free tuition, but students must apply directly to departments.

HOW TO APPLY
Admission Requirements
Applicants for the MVB or VMED Graduate Programs will meet the following requirements to be considered for admission:

• B.S. or B.A. in biomedical sciences and/or a D.V.M.
  
• Minimum GPA of 3.00 on a 4-point scale
  
• Minimum TOEFL score of 213 (550 paper-based), MELAB score of 80, or IELTS score of 6.5
  
• Competitive GRE scores, obtained within the previous 5 years (mandatory for MVB, optional for VMED)
  
• Laboratory experience (preferred)
  
• Clinical experience (preferred)
  

Application Process
Students with appropriate backgrounds are encouraged to apply directly to the MVB or VMED program and not to individual faculty members. The application deadline for MVB is February 1 for admission into the program for the fall semester. However, deadlines will be flexible to allow for the recruitment of exceptional students. VMED will accept applications throughout the year, with enrollment occurring in Fall or Spring Semester. Please include the following materials with your official Graduate School Application:

• Official transcripts from all post-secondary schools attended
  
• Official GRE and (international applicants) TOEFL scores
  
• Three letters of reference
  
• Personal statement of experience and goals
  
• Current curriculum vitae
  

Application materials, with the exception of the letters of reference and curriculum vitae, should be sent to the Graduate School at the following address:
Graduate School
University of Minnesota
309 Johnston Hall
101 Pleasant St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

WHO TO CONTACT

FACULTY AND MAJOR RESEARCH INTERESTS

Abrahamsen, Mitchell—Associate Professor (Molecular Biology and Biochemistry); Regulation of eukaryotic gene expression; molecular parasitology, including Cryptosporidium development and host/parasite interactions. (MVB)

Alexander, Leeson—Assistant Professor (Genomics); Swine, equine, and turkey genomics; molecular biology; genome mapping. (MVB)

Ames, Trevor—Professor. Large animal internal medicine, infectious diseases of horses and cattle, and bovine respiratory disease. (VMED)

Armstrong, Jane— Professor. Canine genetics, companion animal clinical nutrition, hepatology, and companion animal epidemiology. (VMED)

Beitz, Alvin—Professor (Anatomy); Molecular and neurochemical alterations that occur in the brainstem and spinal cord in response to persistent or chronic pain; the effects of pain on immunity; molecular and cellular basis of vestibular compensations. (MVB)

Bender, Jeff— Assistant Professor. Antimicrobial resistance, food safety, zoonoses and emerging diseases in agricultural species and humans. (VMED)

Bey, Russell—Professor; Surface proteins associated with protection against infection and their use in the diagnosis of spirochetal diseases; bovine mastitis. (MVB, VMED)

Borjesson, Dori— Assistant Professor. Clinical pathology, Tickborne disease. (VMED)

Brown, David R.—Professor (Pharmacology Toxicology, Neuroscience); Neuroimmunopharmacology; neurogastroenterology; pharmacological and toxicological modifications of mucosal host defense processes. (MVB, VMED)

Carlson, Cathy—Associate Professor (Veterinary Clinical Pathology); morphological aspects of orthopaedic diseases, primarily osteoarthritis, in naturally occurring osteoarthritis in cynomolgus monkeys as a nonhuman primate model of this disease. (MVB, VMED)

Collins, Jim— Professor. Diagnostic pathology and infectious diseases. (VMED)

Collister, John—Assistant Professor (Anatomy and Physiology); Long-term control of blood pressure, specifically, hormonal regulation of the sympathetic nervous system’s control of blood pressure; pathogenesis of salt-dependent hypertension. (MVB)

Da, Yang—Assistant Professor, (Animal Science); Quantitative genetics; statistical analysis for mapping disease genes and quantitative trait loci. (MVB)

Dalmasso, Augustin—Professor (Transplantation Biology); Mechanisms of xenograft rejection and its prevention in pig-to-human models of xenotransplantation. (MVB)

Dee, Scott—Associate Professor. Transmission, control and evaluation of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). (VMED)

Deen, John— Associate Professor. Swine health management, epidemiology of swine diseases, economics of swine production. (VMED)

El Halawani, Mohamed—Professor (Avian Endocrinology); Reproductive problems in avian species; interrelations between prolactin, gonadotropins, and ovarian function; control and regulation of hormones by the brain. (MVB)

Faaberg, Kay—Assistant Professor (Molecular Virology/Immunology); Mechanisms of RNA virus pathogenesis and viral structure/function relationships; construction of recombinant vaccines; protein modeling. (MVB, VMED)

Fahning, Mel—Professor. Theriogenology. (VMED)

Fahrenkrug, Scott C.—Associate Professor (Functional Genomics); Transposon-based vertebrate mutagenesis and gene annotation, comparative and functional genomics; production trait genetics in livestock and model organisms; bioinformatics. (MVB)

Farnsworth, Ralph— Professor. Bovine mastitis, zoo animal medicine. (VMED)

Feeney, Dan— Professor. Computed tomography of companion animals, ultrasonography of companion animals, Imaging in the prediction of canine urocystolith mineral types. (VMED)

Fetrow, John— Professor. Animal records systems and herd monitoring; veterinary medical economics relating to food animal production; dairy production medicine. (VMED)

Foster, Douglas—Professor, (Molecular Biology); Avian cell immortalization and cell line development for vaccine production; cell cycle regulation; cellular events leading to senescence; avian neuroendocrinology, gene regulation, and apoptosis. (MVB, VMED)

Gallant, Esther—Professor (Anatomy and Physiology); Electrophysiological studies of isolated mammalian skeletal muscle and myotubes; mechanisms of excitation-contraction coupling and the basis for muscle disorders. (MVB)

Gebhart, Connie—Research Associate. Diagnostic microbiology, molecular epidemiology, mechanisms of pathogenesis, and development of molecular diagnostics. (VMED)

Godden, Sandra—Assistant Professor. Dairy nutritional management, dairy reproductive management, dairy records analysis, infectious disease control. (VMED)
Goyal, Sagar—Professor and Chair (Veterinary Diagnostic Medicine); Viral pathogenesis and diagnostics. (MVB, VMED)

Halvorson, Dave—Professor. Infectious and noninfectious diseases of poultry. (VMED)

Hardy, Bob— Professor. Diseases of the liver and pancreas, feline endocrinology, neurological diseases of companion animals. (VMED)

Hayden, Dave—Professor. Companion animal oncology, comparative pathology, and animal models. (VMED)

Hueston, Will—Professor. Food safety. (VMED)

Isaacson, Richard—Professor and Chair (Veterinary Pathobiology); Molecular mechanisms of adhesion of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli; identification of novel genes expressed in vivo; molecular basis of asymptomatic infections of swine. (MVB)

Jessen, Carl—Professor. Canine hip dysplacia. (VMED)

Joo, Han Soo—Professor. Swine viral diseases, and viral diseases associated with reproductive failure in domestic animals. (VMED)

Kanjilal, Sagarika—Assistant Professor (Comparative Cancer Genomics); Molecular markers of cancer progression; cancer genomics. (MVB)

Kannan, Mathur—Associate Professor (Pharmacology); Calcium signaling in smooth muscle cells and immune cells; Signal transduction mechanisms in cells; pathogen-mediated alteration of host-cell signaling. (MVB, VMED)

Kapur, Vivek—Associate Professor (Bacterial Pathogenesis); Molecular population genetics of bacterial pathogens; evolution of bacterial virulence factors; basic mechanisms of bacterial disease pathogenesis; microbial genome sequencing. (MVB, VMED)

Klausner, Jeff— Professor. Cancer immunology, cancer epidemiology. (VMED)

Kramek-Heffernan, Betty— Associate Clinical Specialist. Orthopedic Diseases - Physeal Closure and Arthritis; Acetabular Fracture and Repair, Dentistry, Oncology. (VMED)

Larson, Alice—Professor (Pharmacology and Neuroscience); Long-term regulation of pain and opioid analgesia; the influence of substance P and excitatory amino acids on pain perception in the spinal cord; etiology of fibromyalgia. (MVB)

Lipowitz, Alan—Professor. Articular disease of dogs, gastrointestinal and urinary disease of dogs, and cardiopulmonary surgery. (VMED)

Lokensgard, James—Assistant Professor. Neurovirology, neuroimmunology, viral vectors. (VMED)

Lulich, Jody—Associate Professor. Comparative urolithiasis: investigating the causes, risk factors, clinical epidemiology, nutritional aspects, ultra-structure, medical dissolution and identification and development of animal models for human urolithiasis. (VMED)

Maheswaran, Samuel—Professor (Microbiology); Bovine respiratory disease focussing on the molecular mechanisms of lung injury and molecular characterization of Pasturella haemolytica leukotoxin-receptor interaction; bovine cytokine biology. (MVB, VMED)

Malone, Erin—Assistant Clinical Specialist. Equine and bovine gastrointestinal motility dysfunction, including post-operative ileus, proximal enteritis, and abomasal displacements. (VMED)

Mauro, Laura—Assistant Professor (Physiology/Biochemistry); Signal transduction in bone, focussing on the importance of the tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) in cell proliferation and differentiation. (MVB)

Mertens, Petra—Assistant Professor. Small animal behavior. (VMED)

Mickelson, James—Associate Professor (Biochemistry); Regulation of cell Ca2+ and muscle excitation-contraction coupling; definition of the molecular basis for inherited disorders in horses and dogs; construction of canine and equine genome maps. (MVB)

Molitor, Thomas—Professor (Virology and Immunology); Molecular and cellular immunology; immune regulation under conditions of stress and virus infection; molecular mechanisms of virus pathogenesis, psycho-neuroimmunology. (MVB, VMED)

Moon, Roger—Professor. Modeling of population dynamics and epidemiology. (VMED)

Morrison, Bob—Associate Professor. Pork production, benchmarking production & financial records, analysis of financial records, and statistical process control. (VMED)

Murtaugh, Michael—Professor. (Molecular Biology); Molecular immunology, including the role of cytokine expression in disease pathogenesis and in protective immunity; protein and antibody engineering; psycho-neuroimmunology. (MVB, VMED)

Nagaraja, Kakambi— Professor. Avian medicine, microbiology and immunology. (VMED)

Njenga, Moses—Assistant Professor (Molecular Virology); Virus-host immune interactions; antiviral immune responses in destructive processes in the central nervous system; zoonotic risks in xenotransplantation; and sequencing of avian pneumovirus. (MVB, VMED)

O’Grady, Scott—Professor (Physiology); Mechanisms of Na and Cl absorption and secretion in epithelial tissues; regulation of epithelial ion transport; structural and functional properties of cotransport systems. (MVB)

O'Brien, Timothy—Professor. Pathogenesis of islet amyloidosis and its relationship to the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes mellitus of humans and animals. (VMED)

Osborn, John—Professor (Physiology and Neuroscience); Interaction between neural and hormonal controllers in cardiovascular function; neurophysiological and hemodynamic studies of the mechanisms of neurogenic hypertension. (MVB)

Osborne, Carl—Professor. Diseases of the urinary system, and bioethics. (VMED)

Peterson, Phil—Professor. Intrinsic mechanisms of host defense and injury of the brain. Cytokines and chemokines in infectious diseases. Psychoactive drugs and immunity. (VMED)

Pijoan, Carlos—Professor. Swine respiratory and neurological diseases; alternative swine production; and high health swine production, buildings and ventilation. (VMED)

Polzin, David—Professor. Pathophysiology of renal disease and renal failure, therapy of renal failure, clinical epidemiology/clinical trials; diseases of the urinary tract. (VMED)

Ponce de León, F. Abel—Professor and Chair (Animal Sciences); Avian genomics and growth; bovine quantitative trait loci identification. (MVB)

Pullen, Mike—Professor. Food safety and public health. (VMED)

Quandt, Jane—Assistant Clinical Specialist. Analgesia, pain management, anesthesia, critical care patients. (VMED)

Redig, Patrick—Associate Professor. Avian medicine, especially: orthopedic surgery, pathophysiology & treatment of respiratory fungal diseases. (VMED)

Reed, Kent—Assistant Professor. (Molecular Biology/Genetics); Application of molecular and cytogenetic approaches to the study of genome structure, organization, and evolution. (MVB)

Roberts, Ken—Assistant Professor. Urologic surgery. (VMED)

Robinson, Elaine—Associate Professor. Pain control and analgesia in animals; epidural analgesia; pharmacology and clinical effects; and propofol anesthesia in dogs and raptors. (VMED)

Root-Kustritz, Margaret. Assistant Clinical Specialist. (VMED)

Rossow, Kurt—Assistant Professor. Diagnostic pathology and research of infectious diseases in swine. (VMED)

Rutherford, Mark—Associate Professor (Molecular Immunology); Molecular immunology of macrophage development; immunotoxicology; macrophage-virus interactions that influence host cell gene expression. (MVB, VMED)

Sage, Abby—Associate Clinical Specialist. Large animal internal medicine, ultrasonography, and cardiology. (VMED)

Schrott, Lisa—Research Associate. Stress and immunity. (VMED)

Seguin, Bradley—Professor. Bovine reproduction and health management, and estrus synchronization. (VMED)

Sharma, Jagdev—Professor. Immunology, infectious viral disease, avian cellular immunology. (VMED)

Stromberg, Bert—Professor. Immune response to parasites, with particular interest in the immune response to bovine coccidia, evaluation of antiparasitic compounds. (VMED)

Tobias, Anthony—Assistant Professor (Clinical Cardiology and Cardiovascular Physiology); Aspects of the pathophysiology and treatment of heart failure. (MVB)

Torres, Sheila—Assistant Professor. Hypothyroidism in dogs, pathogenesis and therapy of allergies in dogs and cats, and disease therapy of demodicosis in dogs. (VMED)

Trent, Micky—Associate Professor. Large animal surgery. (VMED)

Turner, Tracy—Professor. Equine lameness, orthopedics, podiatry, back and upper limb lameness, thermography, and navicular disease. (VMED)

Valberg, Stephanie—Associate Professor (Equine Physiology). Equine exercise physiology and associate muscle metabolic responses; genetic and molecular basis of exertional myopathies in large animals. (MVB, VMED)

Walcheck, Bruce—Assistant Professor (Immunology); Cell adhesion and signaling mechanisms; leukocyte recruitment from the blood into lymphoid organs and sites of inflammation. (MVB)

Wallace, Larry—Professor. Pathology, surgery. (VMED)

Walter, Patricia—Associate Professor. Correlative and Alternate Imaging. (VMED)

Weiss, Douglas—Professor (Clinical Pathology); Mechanisms of inflammatory and thrombotic diseases, including equine laminitis and pneumonic pasteurellosis; inflammatory cytokines and platelet and neutrophils function. (MVB, VMED)

Wells, Scott—Assistant Professor (Veterinary Epidemiology); Epidemiologic studies related to Johne’s disease in dairy cattle and other food-producing animals; control of infectious pathogens in food-producing animals, especially those of zoonotic concern. (MVB, VMED)

Wheaton, John—Professor. Emphasis is placed on the regulation of pituitary gonadotropin secretion and on the regulation of ovarian function. (VMED)

Go To Profile Index Page

Go To Top Of Page