Lisa Ann Fortier, DVM, PhD, grew up on a farm in North Dakota with six brothers and sisters. Like many westerners, she participated in rodeo events, such as roping and barrel racing. Having first enrolled as a theater major at Moorhead State University, Fortier soon realized theater was not her future.
“I just couldn't stay out of the chemistry and biology classes,” she recalls.
While human medicine didn't appeal to her, animal care did. She switched into a pre-veterinary program, then went on to earn her DVM at Colorado State University.
Although Fortier is now an equine surgeon, she never planned it that way. The path of her career, she says, has been continuously molded by the influence of great mentors. In veterinary school, for example, she was exposed to faculty members who were pioneering the latest advances in arthroscopic surgery. Instead of going immediately into private practice, as many of her classmates did, Fortier decided to pursue an equine internship at the Illinois Equine Clinic in Naperville , Illinois . While there she gained knowledge about the surgical management of diseases of racehorses from the extensive experiences of the veterinary staff.
Her lifelong interest in horses and cattle steered her toward equine surgery. “At that point, I knew Cornell had the best equine surgery program, but I wanted to go back west, not to New York,” she recalls.
Fortier visited Cornell when applying for her surgical residency and never looked back. “The faculty at Cornell were clearly the most supportive and collegial of any that I encountered, and they were outstanding in equine surgery,” Fortier says.
After becoming board certified in large animal surgery and completing her PhD at Cornell in veterinary science, Fortier worked for a year as a postdoctoral researcher. In 2000 she joined the faculty as an assistant professor of clinical sciences. Her appointment is 75 percent research.
Fortier's long-term research goal is to understand how cells develop from their embryonic stage to maturity and then go on to become diseased, so she can then apply that knowledge to determining the cause of arthritis in cartilage cells.
A first step is to establish and characterize a line of equine stem cells. This work has already been done for humans, some primates, and two strains of mice, but not for horses.
Fortier obtains her stem cells from embryos that are flushed from pregnant mares, just as they would be for embryo transfer. While research on human stem cells is strictly limited by federal regulations (because in the process the embryo is destroyed), there is no such restriction on the study of equine stem cells. Such cells are totipotent, that is, they can potentially be stimulated to develop into any kind of cell such as heart, lung, or nerve cells. Down the line, these custom-made tissues could be used to repair damaged ones.
In the meantime, an established line of equine stem cells would be invaluable to other researchers.
“Because these cells can be turned into any cell type in the body, they are particularly useful for researchers studying diseases for which tissue is difficult to obtain: placenta cells for early pregnancy/abortion studies or nerve cells for scientists trying to understand why nerves die and how they can be regenerated,” she explains.
In the future, Fortier also expects to use the horse as a model for stem cell transplantation studies, which are not currently allowed in human beings.
“Because these cells can be turned into any cell type in the body, they are particularly useful for researchers studying diseases for which tissue is difficult to obtain: placenta cells for early pregnancy/abortion studies or nerve cells for scientists trying to understand why nerves die and how they can be regenerated.” - Lisa Fortier
Fortier is the co-author on almost two dozen scientific journal articles, serves on the review boards of Veterinary Surgery and The American Journal of Veterinary Research, and speaks internationally about her research findings and surgical techniques. In addition, she teaches equine lameness and surgery to DVM students. Fortier is married to another equine surgeon, Alan Nixon. They have two daughters.
What about that longing to return to the West? “We're fairly embedded here,” Fortier says. “There are a lot of smart people at Cornell who are putting it all together. As a scientist, the package is unbeatable.”
“Because these cells can be turned into any cell type in the body, they are particularly useful for researchers studying diseases for which tissue is difficult to obtain: placenta cells for early pregnancy/abortion studies or nerve cells for scientists trying to understand why nerves die and how they can be regenerated.” 
