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Equine Colitis Lab

News

Nov 3, 2026

Congratulations to Dr. Lilly Haywood on successfully defending her PhD thesis!!!

Dr. Haywood defended her thesis under the direction of Dr. Sheahan. The thesis is entitled: “Pathophysiology and Cellular Mechanisms of Equine Colitis”. She did an INCREDIBLE job and we are so proud of her!! Also thank you to her grad student friends for providing an amazing defense menu:

Aug 9, 2026

Congrats to our summer veterinary students, Keeley and Madison, on presenting their work at the Veterinary Scholars Symposium!

Keeley presented her summer work on optimizing an Air Liquid Interface in equine colonic monolayers, and Madison presented her work on investigation of Vitamin E transport in equine jejunal monolayers. They both did an amazing job and we were so fortunate to have them in the lab this summer! Keeley will be presenting at the…

Jul 29, 2026

Publication alert: Endoscopic Evaluation Reveals Subclinical Complications are Common After Nasogastric Intubation in Horses at a Referral Hospital.

Dr. Lexi Fielding, who recently completed her surgery residency at NC State, and Dr. Sheahan published a retrospective reviewing complications after nasogastric intubation in horses. Nasogastric intubation is a very common procedure in horses that fortunately rarely causes major complications! Read more here: https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/aop/javma.26.03.0206/javma.26.03.0206.xml

Jul 8, 2026

Equine Colitis Lab awarded a CVM Intramural Award to study the role of mucins in equine colitis

We are excited to investigate the role of equine colonic mucins in colitis using both archived tissue from the University of Guelph (courtesy of Dr. Luis Arroyo) and an in vitro model of C. difficile. Thank you to the CVM for supporting us!

Apr 23, 2026

Publication alert: Downregulation Of a Choline Transporter Gene in Equine Colitis Indicates a Role for Choline Supplementation to Support the Colonic Epithelial Barrier

The Equine Colitis Lab is excited to share some interesting results from Mary O’Neill (veterinary student)’s project in the lab! She found that supplemental choline helped colonic epithelium to grow faster in culture, indicating this could be a therapeutic mechanism to improve barrier recovery in colitis. Read more here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0737080626001528