1. Meet our fourth 2026 Distinguished Service Award recipient, Dr. Boyd Hobson Parr '76 [honored]
Clemson Alumni Association
April 2026
The Distinguished Service Award is the highest honor that the Association can bestow upon an alumnus or alumna, and is given to those who have not only devoted their life to professionalism and public service, but who have also demonstrated a lifelong dedication to Clemson University.
Dr. Boyd Hobson Parr of Newberry has devoted his life to professionalism and public service. Boyd entered Clemson in 1972 as a dairy science major and was accepted into the University of Georgia's veterinary school in 1974. His Clemson degree in pre-professional studies was awarded in consideration of the hours he completed while earning his doctorate in veterinary medicine from UGA in 1978. He is a member of the Clemson class of 1976.
He began his professional private practice by starting Piedmont Farm Services, and for the next 25 years he was involved in animal production medicine in both the Carolinas and Georgia. In 2004, he joined Clemson's Livestock Poultry Health (LPH) programs, rising to become LPH director and South Carolina State Veterinarian.
Though Boyd officially retired in 2021, he continued to support the establishment of Clemson's Harvey S. Peeler Jr. College of Veterinary Medicine, which is under construction, by co-chairing the college's steering committee from 2022 to 2025. He currently volunteers as a special assistant to the dean of the college and as an adjunct professor of animal and veterinary sciences in the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences.
Read more about Boyd's service and accomplishments here: https://bit.ly/4vIK20i
2. Generic drug for treating internal parasites in sheep receives FDA approval
The oral moxidectin therapy is available over the counter.
Author: Kristen Coppock Crossley, MA
DVM360.com
April 30,, 2026
Officials with the FDA have approved a generic moxidectin product for the treatment and control of internal parasites in sheep. The application for the product, Moxidectin Oral Drench for Sheep, is sponsored by from First Priority Inc., an Illinois-based manufacturer of animal care products and generic drugs.
The FDA has determined that Moxidectin Oral Drench for Sheep is bioequivalent to the brand-name drug Cydectin Oral Drench for Sheep (Elanco Animal Health), which was approved by the agency in 2005. Both products contain the same active ingredient: moxidectin.
Moxidectin Oral Drench for Sheep is available over the counter in 1-liter and 4-liter bottles. According to the FDA, "the recommended the rate of administration into a sheep's mouth is 1 mL per 11 lbs. (1 mL per 5 kg) of body weight, which provides a dose level of 0.2 mg moxidectin per 2.2 lbs. (0.2 mg/kg) body weight."
3. A Unified Industry Path to Healthier Swine Herds
The National Swine Health Strategy turns research into slat-level solutions. Learn how industry-wide alignment is tackling PRRSV and PEDV today.
National Hog Farmer
May 1, 2026
Dr. Meredith Petersen outlines the National Swine Health Strategy from the National Pork Board and National Pork Producers Council. This effort aligns Pork Checkoff research to reduce domestic disease and keep foreign threats out of the U.S. herd.
Every pork producer knows that herd health is more than just a set of data points. It is a daily reality that affects your team's morale, your animals' well-being and the long-term stability of your operation. This is why the National Pork Board is leading the National Swine Health Strategy - a producer-led approach to address our most significant challenges, including the devastating impacts of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus. By creating industry-wide alignment, we can achieve a measurably healthier herd and fulfill our commitment to improve the lives of both pigs and people.
4. How Auburn's new animal rescue team meets a critical need in disaster response [AL]
By Nathan Watson
Bham Now
April 30, 2026
In the Loveliest Village on the Plains, a group of Auburn students, faculty, volunteer veterinarians and veterinary technicians is preparing to mobilize for Alabama's next disaster-wherever it strikes. Auburn's Veterinary Emergency Response Team (AVERT) is a new program that works alongside traditional emergency response teams to ensure that livestock and companion animals are not overlooked during disaster response.
We spoke with AVERT champion and veterinarian Dr. Chance Armstrong to learn more about the program.
In 2016, Dr. Armstrong was a relatively new member of the Louisiana State Animal Response Team (LSART) when the state was devastated by catastrophic flooding in 21 parishes, stranding tens of thousands of people in their homes. Despite his limited disaster response training, Dr. Armstrong joined the rescue effort and saw firsthand what coordinated, mission-driven response efforts could accomplish.
"That experience changed my perspective on the role veterinarians can play in disaster situations. It became clear to me that there was a critical need for organized, well-trained veterinary response teams that could integrate seamlessly with emergency management systems."
Following his experiences in Louisiana, Dr. Armstrong-now an Associate Professor at Auburn University-approached Dr. Calvin Johnson, the Dean of Auburn's College of Veterinary Medicine, with an idea for a team that could serve the state and support regional partners during disasters.
With support from the College and the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association, AVERT was born.
5. African Swine Fever Virus Targets p300 for Degradation
Bioengineer
May 3, 2026
In a groundbreaking study poised to deepen our understanding of viral manipulation of host cellular machinery, researchers have unveiled a sophisticated mechanism by which the African swine fever virus (ASFV) subverts host defenses to facilitate its replication and pathogenicity. The newly reported findings, published in npj Viruses, reveal how the ASFV-encoded MGF505-1R protein commandeers the host's ubiquitin-proteasome system through recruitment of the cullin-RING ligase (CRL) complex, ultimately leading to targeted degradation of the key transcriptional co-activator p300. This discovery not only illuminates a novel viral strategy of immune evasion but also provides potential molecular targets for therapeutic intervention against this devastating swine pathogen.
ASFV is a large, complex double-stranded DNA virus that poses a significant threat to the global swine industry, causing African swine fever with mortality rates reaching near 100% in domestic pigs. Despite decades of research, effective vaccines or antiviral treatments remain elusive, partly due to the virus's elaborate immune evasion mechanisms. Central to these mechanisms is the virus's ability to modulate host cellular processes, including gene transcription and protein stability. The p300 protein, a transcriptional co-activator and histone acetyltransferase, is integral to orchestrating innate immune responses through modulation of interferon-stimulated genes and downstream antiviral effectors.
Full text: https://bioengineer.org/african-swine-fever-virus-targets-p300-for-degradation/
6. Cows' methane burps may be fueled by a newfound organelle in gut microbes
The newly dubbed hydrogenobody is found in ciliates living in cows' first stomach
By Tina Hesman Saey
Science News
April 30, 2026
A newly discovered organelle may hold the key to how much methane cattle burp out.
The organelle doesn't belong to cows. It's part of fuzzy single-celled protozoa called ciliates. The microbes live in cattle's rumens, the first stomach of cud-chewing animals where grass and other plants are fermented and broken down. The new organelle is called a hydrogenobody. It makes hydrogen, which then stimulates other microbes in the rumen to produce the greenhouse gas methane, researchers report April 30 in Science.
The discovery could point to new ways to control methane emissions from cud-chewing animals such as cattle, sheep, goats and deer. Those ruminants account for about 30 percent of methane produced by agriculture.
Ciliates make up about a quarter of the microbes that live in the rumen but have not been studied much, says Ivan Cepicka, a protistologist at Charles University in Prague who was not involved in the study.
Researchers in China have now filled some of that knowledge gap by cataloging DNA from ciliates living in the rumens of cattle and other ruminants. They found 65 species of ciliates, 45 of which had never had their DNA examined. Those species fell into major groups: Vestibuliferida, Entodiniomorphida and another unclassified family. Vestibuliferida species resemble Koosh balls because they are covered in cilia, while Entodiniomorphida tend to have a shock of cilia concentrated in one part of the cell.
This catalog of ciliates is a treasure trove of information for scientists who study ruminant microbiology, says Rainer Roehe of Scotland's Rural College in Midlothian. He investigates how cattle's genetics influence the microbes living in their rumens. Such libraries have been difficult to assemble because ciliates have lots of repetitive DNA and frequently exchange DNA with other microbes. That makes it hard to read parts of the DNA and to disentangle what DNA actually belongs to ciliates versus contamination from other organisms. To get around the contamination problem, the Chinese researchers had to isolate single ciliate cells to conduct their studies.