The Morris Animal Foundation recently awarded CVM Dr. Erica McKenzie $87,271 to study the cause of Exertional Rhabdomyolysis in Arabian Horses.
McKenzie has a background in equine sport medicine and her Ph.D. involved the study of exercise-induced muscle damage in Thoroughbred horses. along with with third-year student Dr. Melissa Fiedler, McKenzie has also been studying Arabian endurance horses. “We identified that they have a significant incidence of muscle damage during racing,” she says. “On closer evaluation of some of these horses last year, including examination of their muscle tissue from biopsies we obtained, we identified what might be a novel disease in this breed.”
During her sabbatical leave this year, Dr. McKenzie will be collecting additional muscle samples and performing exercise tests on affected and healthy Arabian horses in the Pacific Northwest region. She will then take the samples to the University of Minnesota to work with her co-investigator, Dr Stephanie Valberg, performing further specialized analyses to definitively characterize the condition, and to determine exercise-associated alterations in metabolic responses and gene expression in affected horses.
