Job Description
My name
is Megan Pope and I am the colony manager for Dr. Barry Byrne’s lab at the
University of Florida, where we have a colony of Lapphund dogs that are
carriers for Pompe’s Disease. The dogs in the study mimic the infantile onset
in humans and typically do not begin to show clinical signs until they are
about six months old. Our lab has been in the process of creating an injection
that will hopefully correct the disease through gene therapy.
Pompe’s
Disease is an autosomal recessive glycogen storage disease that is caused by a
deficiency or absence of acid alpha-glucosidase (GAA) that causes degenerative
neuromuscular disease. The disease is classified as glycogen storage disease
type II as the GAA is the enzyme that is required for glycogen degradation in
the lysosomes is deficient or absent, and thus the glycogen accumulates in the
muscles and causes the cells to enlarge. This accumulation affects the skeletal
muscle, cardiac muscles, and liver eventually causing progressive cardiac myopathy,
skeletal muscle weakness, respiratory difficulty and severe cardiac
hypertrophy. There are three categories of the disease, which are infantile
onset, juvenile onset and late onset. With the disease, the dogs are also prone
to megaesophagus. This condition will cause the dogs to have chronic vomiting
problems and troubles maintaining weight.
As a
part of this protocol we are breeding heterozygous animals to get homozygous
recessive animals that will display the clinical signs. The homozygous dominant
and heterozygous animals do not display any associated signs of disease and
thus will be adopted out to approved forever homes. The affected dogs will
develop cardiorespiratory problems and some skeletal muscle problems and will
require around the clock care.
I am
currently looking for students who can assist during the whelping process and
afterwards with the affected puppies. There will be continuous breeding done in
order to produce enough affected puppies to complete the study.
The students will be required to:
- Provide supplemental feeding to puppies who are not suckling well
- Providing care to the dam, including feeding, cleaning and allowing her exercise
- Some behavioral training with the older dogs
- Assisting with semen collections and artificial insemination
- Work 4 hour blocks of time completing all required tasks
- Providing all dogs with standard care
- Giving any necessary medications
- Cleaning ears
- Giving bathes
- Weighing puppies daily
- Reporting any health concerns
- Basic dog husbandry
- Assist with performing MRI, CT scans, ECG/EKG
If you are interested in working with the
colony please filled out the following paperwork to the best of your ability
and return it to me via email at megan.pope@peds.ufl.edu
or you can request a time to drop it off in my office. My office is in the
Academic Research Building located between the Medical School and the McKnight
Brain Institute. Please include a copy of your resume. We are hopeful to start
breeding during the month of July but there is work to do between now and then
as far as acclimating our in house dogs.
Please fill out the below information:
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Name
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Class/Year
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Phone #
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Monday:
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Tuesday:
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Wednesday:
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Thursday:
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Friday:
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Saturday:
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Sunday:
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Please list species you have
worked with:
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Are you available to work
weekends and holidays?
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- Please mark with an X your level of experience at these skills:
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Skill
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No experience
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Observed
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Have performed
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Proficient
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Comment
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Canine Breeding
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Puppy Care
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Oral drug dosing
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Intravenous inj.
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Blood Collection
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Animal Restraint
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Subcutaneous inj.
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Intramuscular inj.
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Record Keeping
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Computer Skills
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- Do you have experience working in a veterinary setting? If so please describe briefly:
