Animal Analysis: Veterinary Pathologist Kelsey Brakel
Written by Monica VanDerWeide, ’95
Suited up in personal protective equipment in a sterile Biosafety Level 2 veterinary diagnostic lab at Michigan State University, Kelsey Brakel, ’12, tackles a job not for the faint of heart. A veterinary pathologist, Kelsey studies animal disease by examining animal organs and feces, often by performing a necropsy—animal autopsies. It’s a far cry from the earthworm and frog dissections of high school biology class, but a job that is critical for conservation efforts, protecting humans from animal-transmissible diseases, and even for legal cases involving animals.
After participating in 4-H during high school, Kelsey knew she wanted to be a veterinarian. “I knew Hillsdale was academically rigorous, and I wanted to receive a good preparation for vet school, so I applied to Hillsdale,” she said. Kelsey worked closely with Professor of Biology Jeff Van Zant, who pushed her to establish a pre-veterinary club on campus. Along with two other students, she did just that, and the club continues to thrive today.
“I had some really good opportunities at Hillsdale,” she said. “I job shadowed vets at Binder Park Zoo and John Ball Zoo, as well as with a local veterinarian. I was leaps and bounds ahead of my peers in graduate school because of the hands-on lab experiences I had at Hillsdale. You have access to lab equipment at Hillsdale that undergraduates at large state schools don’t have. Plus, Hillsdale’s professors are so involved with you throughout your research.”
Kelsey participated in the LAUREATES summer research program with Van Zant and wrote her senior thesis on that research project—a study of the heterozygosity and fitness of field mice. She spent one summer conducting research at the College’s G.H. Gordon Biological Station in northern Michigan, and another summer at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, with which the College has an internship program.
As a student in Michigan State University’s veterinary school, Kelsey originally thought she would go the route of a small animal veterinarian. “I was mostly interested in pathology, though,” she recalled, “so I decided to focus on that instead.” After receiving her DVM degree in 2016, Kelsey followed some advice from Dr. Van Zant that she had originally resisted. “He always told me that he thought I should get a Ph.D.,” she recalled. She enrolled in a Ph.D. program in virology at The Ohio State University, simultaneously pursuing an anatomic pathology residency. During that time, she developed a particular interest in eyeball pathology. Upon receiving her Ph.D. in 2021, she then pursued a fellowship at the Comparative Ocular Pathology Laboratory of Wisconsin for about a year-and-a-half before landing her current job as an assistant professor in the veterinary diagnostic lab at Michigan State University.
As one of the nation’s premier veterinary programs, MSU’s diagnostic lab is a busy place. “We tested over 300,000 animal specimens in 2021 (the most recent year of data) from all over the world,” she said. The specimens can be as small as a single organ or feces sample, or as large as a whole rhinoceros. In the case of large animals, the necropsy process is especially time-consuming and laborious, but with any case, the diagnostic process must be extremely precise.
“There’s always a risk of a misdiagnosis that could get me or one of my students sick,” she said.
With an endangered species like the rhinoceros, discovering what caused the animal’s illness and ultimate death is critical in aiding conservation efforts. “There aren’t many rhinos left in the world,” Kelsey said. “So it’s important to find out what went wrong and what preventative measures can be taken for such animals in captivity.”
The process of diagnostic pathology involves comparing the diseased organs to healthy organs and discovering abnormalities. These abnormalities can range from infections to cancer to birth defects. Kelsey also examines environmental factors in the animal’s habitat, such as weeds and fungi, that could contribute to illness. It’s a process of elimination that sometimes requires turning to scientific literature on human pathology to find answers.
MSU’s lab handles a lot of legal cases as well. “For example, the police may call us about a dog that they think starved to death,” she said. “Can we prove that it died of starvation?” Such legal cases required extensive documentation, photos, and samples. While the veterinary pathologists provide detailed descriptions in their reports to the police, they must not provide interpretations or jump to conclusions. “These cases are frequently troubling,” Kelsey said. “Oftentimes, if there is animal abuse in a home, there’s human abuse as well. So there’s a little bit of social services work in a vet’s job, too.”
Looking back on her time at Hillsdale, Kelsey is grateful not only for the amazing preparation she received for her graduate studies, but also for learning how to fail. “You have to learn how to fail,” she said. “I failed some exams at Hillsdale, but that helped me to grow. You talk to your professors to understand what you did wrong, and you learn from it. That’s how you go on to be successful.”
Monica VanDerWeide is Director of Marketing Content for Hillsdale College. She graduated from Hillsdale in 1995 with a degree in English and German.
Published in April 2024