Adronie Verbrugghe
Royal Canin Veterinary Diets Endowed Chair in Canine and Feline Clinical Nutrition | Graduate Coordinator | Associate Professor
Ontario Veterinary College, Department of Clinical Studies
DVM, PhD, Dip ECVCN
Personal Website
@OVCPetNutrition
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Profile
Dr. Adronie Verbrugghe graduated as a companion animal veterinarian (DVM) from Ghent University, Belgium in 2005. She completed her PhD focusing on nutritional modulation of carbohydrate metabolism in cats in 2009 and stayed at the same university for two additional years as a postdoctoral fellow. She became board certified for the European College of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition in 2010.
In 2011, Verbrugghe joined the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC), University of Guelph, as Royal Canin Veterinary Diets Endowed Chair in Canine and Feline Clinical Nutrition. Her academic responsibilities at OVC include development and delivery of the small animal clinical nutrition curriculum for the DVM program. She also works as a clinical nutritionist for the OVC Health Science Centre's Clinical Nutrition Service.
Research Interests
- Companion animal nutrition
- Link between nutrition, gut microbiota, health and disease
- Alteration of metabolic pathways through nutrition
- Nutritional modulation of inflammation and immunity
- Nutrition perceptions and communication
As one of the few board-certified veterinary nutritionists active in academia in Canada, Verbrugghe provides a research program in companion animal nutrition that is unique in Canada. The internationally recognized OVC Pet Nutrition research program focuses on how advances in nutrition and feeding management can optimize the life of pets. This is achieved through basic, applied and clinical nutrition research, including animal trials and survey research. Verbrugghe's current research focuses on pet obesity, gastro-intestinal health and alternative diets.
Verbrugghe holds research funding through the Canadian and Ontario government, charitable organizations, and from pet food industry and ingredient suppliers. In 2019, she received a U of G Research Excellence Award in recognition of her achievements in canine and feline nutrition research.
Graduate Student Information
Dr. Verbrugghe supervises a number of graduate students. Students work and learn in a collaborative and interdisciplinary training environment, partnering with a wide range of academic collaborators in various disciplines and interacting with pet food industry, ingredient suppliers and commodity groups.
Verbrugghe and her OVC Pet Nutrition Team provide hands-on, approachable, respectful and supportive mentorship in an inclusive and diverse environment, generating new research ideas and supporting knowledge translation. Verbrugghe teaches by example and is passionate and enthusiastic about the field of veterinary nutrition. She models curiosity, intellectual rigor, respect and professionalism. Students are encouraged to gain independence and grow and develop as fledging researchers. As a supervisor, Verbrugghe aims to see that all students obtain a high-quality learning experience that progressively develops not only their mastery of knowledge and technical skills, but also their ability to integrate knowledge, develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills and foster creativity and innovation.
Verbrugghe currently supervises graduate students for the following programs:
- Master of Biomedical Sciences (MBS) - coursework
- MSc Clinical Studies - thesis
- PhD Biomedical Sciences, Pathobiology and Population Medicine
- Doctor of Veterinary Sciences (DVSc), including specialty clinical residency training for the European College of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition
The OVC Pet Nutrition team regularly recruits undergraduate research project course students, work study students, summer students and volunteers.
Interested graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to reach out to check if positions are currently available.
Current Graduate Students
- Manuela Fischer – DVSc
- Francisco Poblanno – DVSc
- Erico Ribeiro - DVSc
- Hannah Godfrey – PhD
- Brooklynn Liversidge – PhD
- Shawna Morrow – PhD
- Panagiotis Balousis – MSc
- Yushu (Veronica) Cheng – MSc
- Savanna Moustafa – MBS
- Jingming (James) Yang – MBS
Links
Selected Publications
Search PubMed for publications by Dr. Verbrugghe