Asked how a kid who studied physics in the Australian outback ended up doing large animal surgery in Prince Edward Island, Chris Riley laughs and says, “I had an unexpected life.

“I was the only boy in my town to finish high school to grade 12 that year,” he says. “And when I was done I was told all the things I couldn’t be. But after serving in the Royal Australian Air Force for three-and-a-half years, where I took physics and aerodynamic engineering, I decided I could do whatever I wanted.” And that was to become what he’d wanted since he was a boy: to be a veterinarian.

When he was small, he would often stay with his grandfather for holidays. “He had horses and cows and I just liked being around them and dogs.” He helped put himself through veterinary school by running a weekend pet crematorium and serving as an animal ambulance driver.

“At school, I found I had a natural aptitude for handling animals and to get them to do what I wanted. And I found as a veterinarian that you could use both your mind and your body. It was both a physical occupation and an intellectual one. I like that combination and that balance.”

As he continued work and education in Australia, Canada, and the United States, he increasingly found that “there seemed to be a gap between those who did basic science research and those who
practiced medicine. I wanted to bridge it.”

He decided to do that—building on his enjoyment of physics and mathematics—by developing new diagnostic and testing modalities based on infrared spectroscopy.

“I see a great future in this,” says Riley, who is now Chief of Large
Animal Surgery at AVC’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital. “It’s a very
economical way of testing people and animals. It is reagent free, so it
is environmentally sustainable. It’s based on advanced data analysis—
or bioinformatics—so I think there’s a lot of potential.

“It seemed to me to be an opportunity to carve a niche for myself in research and do it in a relatively new field—taking basic chemistry tools and adapting them to clinical use. I could make a mark, develop a unique expertise, and help animals and people.”

One of Riley’s first research projects—with NRC funds—resulted in an infrared technique to evaluate bowel ischemia (dead bowel), the results for which he published in several papers. Then, with CFI funding, he established his own laboratory in mid-infrared spectroscopy. He’s since developed tests for tarsocrural osteochondrosis in horses
(abnormal development of cartilage in different joints of young
growing horses) and traumatic arthritis in horses (a form of arthritis that is caused in part by inappropriate or excessive motion of a joint
or ligament).

Most recently, he has developed a high-tech analysis technique to test for the failure of passive transfer (FPT) of immunoglobulin status in people and animals.

This work, which was featured in the December 2007 edition of EQUUS Magazine, involved using infrared spectroscopy in developing a more time- and cost-efficient means of testing for FPT in foals. The work has also been presented in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine.

The gold-standard test takes 24 to 48 hours to get a result, and it is expensive. “Our test is reagent-free and has very high accuracy in detecting the failure of the immunoglobulin transfer. It’s a common disease and can cause high mortality, so it’s important to have a test that is very cheap to perform and which can be done in minutes.
“We’ve developed another test that is qualitative—it tells you whether the animal has the disease or not.” As well, Riley says, “It has the
potential to be applied to human medicine, in women with premature placenta separation. We are the only veterinary laboratory in North America, as far as I know, using mid-infrared for developing tests. We’re the leaders in this field. This platform could significantly reduce health-care costs in the area of testing. It could allow screening for diseases at low cost, and it could be done at point-of-care—a point-of-care unit can be bought for only $15,000.”

Now working on patents, he says, “We’re currently in negotiation with a company to commercialize the tests. One of the advantages of the technique is that the same machine can be used to do a variety of tests. What we need to do now is develop a suite of tests that can complement our FPT test. That takes time and resources.

“I’m hoping to develop tests that actually help people directly—not just do research that is publishable. And I’m hoping to work more in the commercialization of research, perhaps in co-coordinating clinical research between the commercial field and the university setting.”

Apart from his research, Riley is focused on identifying continual improvements to delivery of services at AVC’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital. “I’d also like to encourage more clinical people to become involved in research. There are always going to be animals that are sick, but if we can treat them more effectively or prevent diseases, that should be our longer-term vision. And that requires scientific endeavour.”

As well as being an editor of the Canadian Veterinary Journal and an accomplished potter, he is the chair of Christian Veterinarian Missions Canada, which sends veterinary teams around the world. He’s been on missions to Haiti twice and also travelled with a church group to work in an orphanage in Bolivia.

“Surgery is fun. It is technically challenging and it’s creative. Research is intellectually satisfying. But I have to say that the thing I enjoy most is teaching surgery, and making students more competent clinicians. And the missions—that’s really about teaching a veterinarian to be a complete veterinarian. It’s the ultimate teaching experience.”