College of Public Health

Study of fresh milk in Brazil earns first place in poster competition

A veterinary student's investigation into bacteria found in cow's milk has earned her first place in the 2008 Public Health Combined Conference poster competition.

Narry Tiao, a dual master's degree student pursuing an MPH in Veterinary Public Health and an MS in Veterinary Preventive Medicine, spent two months in northeast Brazil last year studying the prevalence of MRSA in milk. Her research was part of her summer practicum experience.

"I was really glad to display my research," Tiao said. "A lot of the posters at the conference were about traditional public health topics. I was there representing the new growing trend in public health, zoonoses, which is especially important nowadays with the new diseases we are facing."

Zoonoses are diseases that can be passed from animals to humans and vice versa. In Brazil, Tiao collected milk samples from dairy farms looking for MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant form of Staphylococcus aureus. She isolated species of Staphylococcus from the milk and brought them back to the United States, where she characterized the MRSA samples using molecular techniques.

"We wanted to see how frequently this pathogen is found in milk in this region and determine their phenotypic and genotypic characteristics to understand them better," Tiao said.

Tiao's research interests include global public health and the molecular epidemiology of emerging infectious diseases. She said her research in Brazil can benefit researchers there and in the United States.

"Now researchers in Brazil can use this preliminary data, which they didn't have funding to collect for themselves, to apply for grants," Tiao said. "On our end, we have collaborators in Brazil and an informative research project comparing the global epidemiology of Staphylococcus from milk."

Tiao's project for her master's thesis will compare the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of Staphylococcus in milk from Brazil and from U.S. dairy farms. Her advisor is Dr. Wondwossen Gebreyes.