Veterinary Student Discovers Passion For Science By Studying Feedlot Lagoons At VERO

Story by Courtney Price, VMBS Marketing & Communications

 

Kourtney Mayfield has had a thirst for knowledge for as long as she can remember. Her curiosity and passion for learning have led her to consider multiple career paths — including linguistics, anthropology, and serving at the United Nations.

More recently, her curiosity led her to biomedical research through the Veterinary Medical Scientist Research Training Program (VMSRTP) at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (VMBS), where she is a second-year Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) student in the 2+2 DVM program at the VMBS’s Veterinary Education, Research, & Outreach (VERO) campus in Canyon, Texas.

A Future Aggie Veterinarian

Like many veterinary students, Mayfield was initially drawn to veterinary medicine by her lifelong love of animals.

“Growing up, I was always rescuing stray animals,” she said. “I also had a lot of pets, including hamsters, rabbits, sugar gliders, snakes, bearded dragons, fish, and even goats.”

This passion — along with the field’s many opportunities to learn new things — was a deciding factor when Mayfield finally settled on veterinary medicine as a career path.

“My whole life, I’ve always been asking questions,” she said. “I always need to know the answer to things. Veterinary medicine is a very good path for someone who always wants something new to learn.”

When it came time to choose a veterinary program, Mayfield’s first choice was Texas A&M.

“I’m from Texas, so going to Texas A&M’s vet school has been my dream for a long time,” she said. “I looked at other schools and many of them are good, but I think Texas just has a very special place in my heart. There’s so much history behind Texas A&M — it has the teaching hospital, the traditions, the community — and you know you’re going to be able to get a job after graduation. I think that’s very important.”

Discovering A Passion For Research

For Mayfield, the VMSRTP was an opportunity to dip her toes into research, even without having prior experience in a laboratory.

“While I haven’t settled on a specific career path yet, I have a strong desire to specialize, and that usually requires a research background,” she said. “So, VMSRTP was a great way for me to try out research and see if it interests me.”

After hearing about the VMSRTP from a friend, Mayfield was able to meet members of the VERO research team and found that she connected with their career stories.

“Almost all of them were like me — people who love to ask questions and get answers,” she said. “A lot of them also weren’t sure what they wanted to do at first. I thought that if they loved research, I should look into it, too.”

Together with Drs. Paul Morley and Lee Pinnell, research scientists at VERO, Mayfield was able to develop a plan for a research project short enough to complete in one summer that would still give her hands-on experience with real data and research methods.

“It was amazing to be able to see the whole process from start to finish,” she said.

   
 Mayfield presenting her research
 

Antimicrobial Resistance And Feedlot Lagoons

For her research, Mayfield conducted a study of feedlot lagoons, which are pools constructed outside pens designed to capture and store runoff and waste from feedlots.

“The goal of having a lagoon is to reduce the pathogen load, or the number of microbes in the animal waste that could potentially spread back into the environment,” Mayfield said. “My project was designed to examine whether microbes in feedlot lagoons might be developing antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which would make the microbes resistant to drugs used to kill them. Since lagoons are used as a management strategy, it would be concerning if they were facilitating growth of AMR.”

Using DNA and RNA samples collected by a graduate student researcher, Mayfield was able to compare fecal and lagoon samples for signs of a specific gene that is often used in research as a marker of AMR.

What she found was that the lagoons did contain higher levels of the gene used to identify AMR, but only in the DNA readings. In the RNA readings, the levels between the lagoons and the fecal samples were the same.

“The difference between DNA and RNA means that RNA is a more accurate measure of how many cells are actively using the gene that indicates AMR,” Mayfield said. “Dr. Morley, Dr. Pinnell, and I came to the conclusion that the DNA count was probably higher because it included a broader picture of all the microbes in the lagoon water, but it is not a sign that lagoons are promoting AMR.”

Building Skills For The Future

For Mayfield, one of the most important skills she learned during the project was research literacy, or the ability to understand scientific and medical publications.

“We regularly participated in a Journal Club where we worked as groups to evaluate published scientific papers,” Mayfield said. “That was one of the most helpful things I experienced because it showed me that you can’t just look at a scientific paper and believe everything it says. There’s so much critical analysis that you need to do to look at the researchers’ process and how they are deciding what they’re doing, what their selection criteria is, and whether they’re making any assumptions.

“That kind of experience is helpful for anybody who is going into any kind of research or medicine,” she said.

This story by Courtney Price originally appeared on VMBS News.