COMPMED 155Q: Microscopy in Animal Disease
General Education Requirements
Not currently certified for a requirement. Courses are typically considered for Ways certification a quarter in advance.
Course Description
The main goal of the course is to raise the interest of frosh students in microscopy-related topics, including research in various areas of biology and medicine, clinical diagnosis and the “one health” scientific approach.
As an introductory component, students will learn about the basics of using a microscope, learning the names of the parts of a microscope, adjusting a microscope according to the type of sample being evaluated, good practice in maintaining microscopes, what makes a microscope good versus bad, tips on purchasing a new microscope.
The bulk of the remainder of classes will be devoted to demonstrating interesting slides, pictures and cases of disease that can be assertively diagnosed through microscopy.
Students will have the opportunity to explore the different types of morphological findings in microscopy, including inclusions of diverse nature, unique infectious agents, distinct malignancy criteria, and different inflammatory infiltrates in animal disease that are common, rare, of public health importance, of zoonotic importance, of particular geographic importance and of serious prognosis, in which an early accurate diagnosis can save lives, optimize public health policies and promote overall animal and human welfare.
Meet the Instructor: Flavio Herberg de Alonso
“I received my DVM degree from the University of Brasilia, Brazil, in 2012, and in 2013 I moved to Belo Horizonte to do a 2-year-long internship program in veterinary clinical pathology at the Federal University of Minas Gerais Veterinary School, Brazil. There I also pursued and obtained my doctoral degree from the Department of Clinics and Surgery of the same institution, where we developed a novel multiple regression model to classify canine cavitary effusions using biochemical parameters. Between 2015 and 16 I worked as a consulting clinical pathologist for private labs and in 2021 I completed a residency in veterinary clinical pathology at the UC Davis veterinary medical teaching hospital, USA, being awarded with the best research study in small animals when I was investigating the lipoprotein profile of canine and feline cavitary transudates. In 2022 I became board certified in clinical pathology by the American College of Veterinary Pathology and, between the years of 2021 and 2022, I served as an assistant professor of clinical pathology at the Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, in the West Indies, for 4 semesters. There I had a research grant proposal approved to study the epidemiologic and hematologic aspects of Dirofilaria spp. infection in cats in the Caribbean. In 2023, I joined the Department of Comparative Medicine as a clinical assistant professor and director of the animal diagnostic laboratory.”
