The Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) serves the 4 provinces of Atlantic Canada (Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI). The college promotes scientific discovery and innovation, trains highly qualified personnel, and advances research and development regionally, nationally, and internationally. Located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the college leverages its unique location by working closely with the aquaculture and agriculture industries to promote the health and welfare of terrestrial and aquatic food animals through service and research. Ensuring the health of Atlantic seafood, through such research studies as the investigation of sea lice infection control in salmon and emerging pathogens that affect oysters, is essential to maintaining the viability of the aquaculture industry for regional and export markets. The research impact of AVC in aquaculture is strengthened by a diagnostic laboratory offering unique expertise in fish pathology and the Center for Veterinary Epidemiology Research (CVER), where epidemiology and health management expertise is globally recognized.
Members of the CVER also contribute to research on terrestrial animals with a focus on livestock, including research on mastitis, milk quality, and antimicrobial resistance, the latter of which is supported by the Canadian Dairy Network for Antimicrobial Stewardship and Resistance. By engaging in field studies that include diagnostic imaging through ultrasound, evaluating farming practices, and assisting in developing humane methods for animal transport, the AVC has established a valued partnership with the agriculture industry in the province. Research in agriculture is soon to be bolstered by the opening of a Foreign Animal Disease Laboratory in 2025, which will improve the region's preparedness against high-consequence pathogens.
Along with the promotion of animal health and food production, AVC researchers collaborate directly with Island farmers to identify and mitigate factors that affect the welfare of livestock. Animal welfare research is strongly supported by the Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre. The Centre supports research spanning many species from fish and laboratory animals to companion animals, large animals, and wildlife. Among these, behavior studies provide new insights on the sleep, rest, and hiding behavior of dairy cattle. The AVC's Canada Research Chair in Social Epidemiology for Healthy Animals is reducing the know-do gap through implementation science approaches to assessing barriers to improving equine and bovine welfare. Atlantic Veterinary College researchers investigate the welfare of companion and laboratory animals through such studies as the influence of early life stressors on puppy and kitten behavior and the effects of ultrasonic noise on rat physiology and behavior. Over the last 5 years, 33 veterinary and graduate students participated in welfare research projects, leading to 75 scientific publications.
Advancing animal health and welfare through clinical and lab-based research.
Citation: American Journal of Veterinary Research 2025; 10.2460/ajvr.25.01.0025
Specialty veterinary services on PEI are only available through AVC's Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH). Here, clinician scientists collaborate with multiple partners to investigate novel techniques, treatments, and mechanisms of action of diseases that affect their patients. Ongoing clinical trials in the VTH include projects led by the Cardiology team to evaluate novel medical approaches to treat dilated cardiomyopathy and cardiac hemangiosarcoma in dogs. Basic science researchers use both in vitro and in vivo models to address developmental and degenerative conditions that affect both humans and animals including renal, neurological, and metabolic diseases. The AVC's Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Genetics is bringing new approaches to this research with expertise in Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases.
