BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM VETERINARY RESEARCH AWARD FOR VETERINARY STUDENTS

The recipient of the 2020 Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinary Research Scholar Award is Megan Fahey, a DVM and Ph.D. degree student at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Fahey is committed to a career as a veterinary clinician scientist, and her research interests have evolved to focus on zoonotic disease, virology, and immunology. Her work in the Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinary Scholars Program has involved exploration of the use of mesenchymal stem cells to prevent or reduce degeneration in intervertebral disc disease.

BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM VETERINARY RESEARCH AWARD FOR GRADUATE VETERINARIANS

The 2020 Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinary Graduate Award was presented at the virtual Veterinary Scholars Symposium to Dr. Sara Osum Isakson, a graduate student completing her Ph.D. in the Comparative and Molecular Biosciences Graduate Program at the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Osum’s Ph.D. research has focused on developing and characterizing the first porcine model of Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a devastating neurologic disease for which there is no cure. Before joining the DVM/PhD program at the University of Minnesota, she spent four years as a research associate, studying tolerance and autoimmunity models and fostering her interest in advancing animal welfare through the development of improved animal models for preclinical research. Dr. Osum received her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Minnesota in 2016, and her Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of California in Santa Cruz, Calif., in 2008.