Sustainable Solutions: Crampy in Cows with Gabby Condello

Crampy in Cows' is a conversation with Guelph graduate student Gabby Condello, delving into her research on Crampy or bovine spastic syndrome, a painful muscular disorder affecting cows. With crampy on the rise, Gabby's research delves into its genetic heritability, aiming to shed light on its origins and potential solutions. Hear about the challenges it poses to producers and the welfare of these animals from a masters students perspective. Podcast created and hosted by UF Department of Agricultural Education and Communication masters student Suzy Rodriguez.

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to sustainable solutions from Guelph to Gainesville, a podcast brought to you by the Streaming Science podcast. Streaming Science is a student led podcast committing to connecting you with leading experts, exploring how science shapes our worlds. and how we can build a more sustainable future together.

Throughout this podcast series, we're not only delving into the topics of sustainable agriculture, natural resources, and science communication and literacy, but we're also taking an international perspective as we connect with alumni and experts from the University of Guelph Ontario Agricultural College in Ontario, Canada.

I'm Susie Rodriguez. I'm a master's student in agricultural and natural resources communication at the University of Florida, and I'm your host. In this interview, I spoke with Gabby Condello, a master's student at the University of Guelph studying animal breeding and genetics. During our conversation, we explored Gabby's journey, their [00:01:00] exciting work in advancing sustainable practices in cattle breeding, and their insights into how we can all continue to pursue a more sustainable future in our everyday lives.

So let's get into our conversation with Gabby and explore the sustainable solutions they're championing bridging the gap from Guelph to Gainesville.

I'm a, I'm Gabby. Um, I'm a second year master's student at the University of Guelph in Canada. I live in Alliston, Ontario, which is like a smaller town, just an hour and a half outside of Guelph. And it's very much a small town, a small, uh, farm town, um, but I did grow up in the city, so when we moved over here, it was kind of a big change for me, but yeah, uh, beyond my work in animal genetics, I think I really just like to get active, go for runs, or play hockey when I can, which is kind of a stereotypical answer for a Canadian, but [00:02:00] that's, I love that, that's what it is.

Can you tell me a little bit about the purpose of your research? Yeah, so I'm investigating the genomics of bovine spastic syndrome, which is commonly known as CRAMPY. Um, it's a neuromuscular disorder that we're seeing a lot more of in cattle. It's characterized by the hyperextension of one or both of their hind limbs or back legs.

Um, and this is just caused by muscle contractions and spasms. So, um, it's uncontrollable for them. It's very similar to a cramp that we would get when we stretch or something that you can't control it. It's really painful. Um, it's not, it's not fun. Um, so with this, it's not, it's very painful, right? So we don't want to to see it as often as we do, um, just because there's no really good treatments for it.

[00:03:00] You're mainly just, uh, using anti inflammatory drugs and stuff like that. So to get a handle on this, um, I'm focusing on understanding the genetic nature of the disorder and highlighting maybe the reasons why we, uh, might be seeing it more often compared to previous years and how we can actually change this.

How does genetics play a role in your research? Yeah, so in research like this, we can use pedigree information or genotype information. So for pedigree information on a population, which just means information on their sire and dams, grandsire, grand dams, and so on, like their family background, um, and this helps with estimating something like heritability.

Heritability is the estimate of the difference in the trait, which is crampy in this case, that's attributed to the genetics of their family background. So, uh, high heritability means genetics has a strong role in the trait, [00:04:00] which is helpful when looking into genetically selecting against the disorder.

Whereas a low heritability means that there might be something else at play, like the environment that's affecting the trait more, uh, which means we're not gonna have as much luck in selecting against the disorder with genetics. Okay. Is it high heritability? Is crampy high heritability. So right now the, uh, heritability is about 6.

8 percent in my data set, um, which may seem low, but with health traits, you typically see around the 10 percent mark, which is, uh, so this is kind of a common. heritability for a health trait. Yeah, so this is, I guess, good news. Um, we can try and work in a way to select against crampy and making a plan that way, which is really nice.

Um, but yeah, there's also, we can also use genomic information, which will give us a little bit more confidence in these estimates. Um, so we have information on the cattle, not [00:05:00] just their family. So, Being, uh, using genotypes, which is the genetic makeup of the animal, we can identify variations within the genotype known as single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs that are associated with CRAMPY and locate genes that might be connected to the spasms in CRAMPY, which we call candidate genes.

Okay. It might be a lot of information, but basically I'm just using the variation in the genotype as a marker to identify genes that could be causing or working together with other genes, um, and causing these spasms that we see in crampy cattle. Yeah, wow. It sounds really important for the well being of the, of the cattle, you know.

Yeah, it's, yeah, because you, I mean, it is a detrimental disorder. It causes a lot of pain and discomfort. So being able to work in Crampie in a selection program would be really beneficial for not just the animals, but also economic, [00:06:00] uh, the economics of the producers because they typically remove the cattle from the herd early.

So nobody's. Nobody's having fun here. How often is it happening? You said it's happening more and more. Do you know, like, percentage wise how many cows it affects? And the data set that I'm using, which was a call that one of the, our industry partners Lactonet had put out to producers to let us know if they had crampy in their herds, um, and that's the data set that I'm using, the percentage is 3.

6 percent prevalence, so not the highest, but it is higher than now than it was in the past. Some studies, uh, there was an increase from 19, the late 90s to 2013, where it had increased by 1. 5%. Wow. So it is, it is climbing and you know, it's better to, even though it might seem like a low number, it's better to, you know, catch it while we can, just to [00:07:00] think of the, the animals and the producers.

How does, how does cattle breeding tie in with your research? With cattle breeding, As a whole, in the simplest way that I can explain it, when a producer goes to breed their cattle, there's this index that will weight a bunch of traits essentially on, like, importance. So to identify the top animals or the animals that perform the best in these traits, it'll weight them a specific way.

So if, if I can implement crampy as one of these traits selection into this index, this would be one step further to actually reducing the occurrence of the disorder because the index will help ensure that those animals that have a higher chance of passing on crampy. are not going to be ranked in the top.

So they'll be at the bottom, will reduce the selection of these, uh, animals that might produce or might produce more crampy offspring. [00:08:00] So by excluding them, we can actually reduce the prevalence that we have in our herds. That sounds incredible. It's really exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. No, that sounds, that sounds really, really impactful.

And so what's the process of like kind of getting that done? Um, if you don't mind me asking. Yeah, no, I mean, the steps of, you know, estimating heritability, seeing if we can even implement it in this, uh, selection index is really good. Um, so we're already working our way towards that, but I'm just talking with industry partners and making sure that this is a plan that, you know, people are as concerned about as we are as researchers.

Um, so if we can. I guess step in that way. I mean, the genetic nature of crampy is not well known. So with identifying these candidate genes, we know the function of these [00:09:00] genes through other studies that have been done. And that will kind of give us an idea on the genetic aspect as well. Or the genomic level, I should say.

Mm hmm. Um, so yeah, both of those ways are. Are steps in the right direction. I mean, it is very early on, even though I might be finished. It is early on. Um, in, in, in the works, I guess. Yeah. Oh, awesome. No, that's so great. And then how, you know, the index is like a really big way to get your work out there.

But are there any other avenues where you would, where you can communicate your research findings? Yeah, I mean, yeah, to the public is a bit difficult because, I mean, not your average, uh, person is going to be as, um, not your average person is going to be as, um, concerned with that. Crampy in cattle, just because, you know, you're, we're [00:10:00] going to want to focus this on more producer level, industry level, maybe veterinarians.

Yeah. Vets would be really good to, to discuss this with because they do have more of an idea of what crampy is. They diagnose it, they are the, the ones behind it. So yeah, having, having them aware that like, hey, this is kind of getting out of hand. Maybe we should identify these cattle quicker. Um, that would be really good.

Yeah. Um, just having producers more open to reporting their cases. If they're more concerned about, you know, they see that their cows are standing up and their leg is extended and shaking. This is maybe a concern, not just some silly thing that a cow's doing. Um, it would help just to have everybody on the same pages.

Maybe we should start reporting these cases of crampy and trying to. How did you find your, find, you know, yourself getting involved in [00:11:00] your research project now. So I actually had no plan to get into research, but I did take a course in my final semester of undergrad where I got to work with a professor on a research topic.

So this is where I actually met my current advisor, Dr. Bays, and she specializes in livestock genetics. So I started my project in animal breeding and genetics. So as a kid, did you, were you always interested in genetics or were you You know, is this something that you wanted from an early age? I mean, as like a little kid, I definitely liked the sciences and maths and stuff.

So that path was pretty motivating for me. But all I knew at the young age of, you know, what do you want to be when you're older was just to be a vet. I knew that I wanted to work with animals and take care of them. So that's where I started with animal biology. But then in grade 11, you are introduced to genetics where, uh, you kind of talk about, you know, Um, like, the inheritance, like, from your [00:12:00] parents to your traits as a kid, so I thought that was really interesting, and any way that I could work it into being a vet would be super cool, so.

It is really interesting. What about genetics kind of interests you, like, in general? Like, is there any cool, like, facts or stories? I'm thinking, like, punnett squares, something about bees. Love. Love Punnett Squares. Yeah, Mandel's Law and all that. So, Punnett Squares was definitely my, like, gateway into genetics.

Um, there was just, like, little assignments that were, um, trying to figure out why do I have brown eyes when my parents have, like, blue and, blue and brown eyes and their grandparents and everything. So, kind of going through my family and, like, the history there was really fun. Um, Speaking of fun and your research, have, has there been any, any hurdles, um, that you've overcome, like as a grad student going through this project?

Yeah. The fun, fun times of hurdles. Yeah. Um, I, [00:13:00] I guess, um, that would have to be, I mean, the whole research As a, as a, as a whole is kind of a learning curve for me only because I was so used to memorizing and prepping for vet school and then suddenly I've just dove into research. So applying the concepts that I'm learning in class.

Um, but after a bit of practice, you know, getting comfortable in this environment, it really helped me understand the material even more, uh, just because I am applying it to something that I'm really passionate about. So this has been, it's a, It's a fun hurdle for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Okay, sweet. So are you going to continue on do you think and get your PhD because you're graduating soon, right?

I am. Yeah, I do. I'm planning on graduating this summer. I would love to do my PhD. I think something might be in the works, hopefully. So. That would be [00:14:00] perfect. I'd love that. But yeah, research has definitely been a lot of fun for me. I think I, I appreciate it a lot more than I did as, you know, somebody just in university, just hanging out in my like second year of university.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Awesome. Well, is there anything else that you would like to add or share that, you know, to our listeners? I don't, like, honestly, just a thank you. Um, it's, it's really cool to talk about my research to people who aren't as involved in it every day. Like, the group that I'm working with, they're all on top of it.

They all understand Crampy and this importance behind my research. But being able to kind of tell everybody about it is really exciting. Nothing I've ever done before. So, uh, yeah, thank you for this opportunity and everybody for listening. Yeah. Thank you for listening to the sustainable solutions from Guelph to Gainesville series on the Streaming Science Podcast.

Make [00:15:00] sure you check out our website and social media for more of our work. If you enjoyed this episode, we encourage you to tune into other episodes in our series and to visit the University of Guelph, Ontario Agricultural College webpages and social media for more info. Once again, I'm your host Susie Rodriguez.

Thanks for listening. For more information about this episode, visit the links in our show notes.