A summer researching equine osteoarthritis and a potential treatment

By: Erica Moser Date: Aug 14, 2024

A Woman sitting in office chair with another standing behind them in a lab setting. — Rising second-year Sidney Wong, right, spent the summer working in the lab of Penn Vet professor Kyla Ortved, left, through the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program.

Raised in Great Neck, New York, by parents who have always loved animals, rising second-year Sidney Wong began shadowing at a small-animal veterinary clinic her junior year of high school. Over time gaining the trust of staff to help with tasks such as bloodwork and customer service, Wong dreamed of someday opening her own clinic.

One of her first-year roommates at Penn told Wong, a pre-vet biology major, about the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program (PURM), a 10-week research opportunity through the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships that comes with a $5,000 award. Wong says it sounded like a great opportunity to dip her feet in veterinary research, and she has always been interested in work that can apply to humans as well as animals.

With a PURM grant, Wong has spent the summer in the lab of Kyla Ortved, the Jacques Jenny Endowed Term Chair of Orthopedic Surgery and associate professor of large animal surgery at the School of Veterinary Medicine, studying the pathophysiology of equine osteoarthritis and a potential therapy.

“Having an opportunity to step in as a total beginner into these amazing projects is a wonderful experience, and for me it’s definitely been very rewarding,” Wong says of PURM.

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About Penn Vet

Ranked among the top ten veterinary schools worldwide, the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) is a global leader in veterinary education, research, and clinical care. Founded in 1884, Penn Vet is the first veterinary school developed in association with a medical school. The school is a proud member of the One Health initiative, linking human, animal, and environmental health.

Penn Vet serves a diverse population of animals at its two campuses, which include extensive diagnostic and research laboratories. Ryan Hospital in Philadelphia provides care for dogs, cats, and other domestic/companion animals, handling more than 34,600 patient visits a year. New Bolton Center, Penn Vet’s large-animal hospital on nearly 700 acres in rural Kennett Square, PA, cares for horses and livestock/farm animals. The hospital handles more than 6,200 patient visits a year, while our Field Services have gone out on more than 5,500 farm service calls, treating some 18,700 patients at local farms. In addition, New Bolton Center’s campus includes a swine center, working dairy, and poultry unit that provide valuable research for the agriculture industry.