Dr. Selena Tinga, right, with her award.

Selena Tinga, D.V.M., a former small animal surgery resident and Ph.D. student at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, received the award for best clinical research presentation at the annual meeting of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons Surgical Summit meeting, held Oct. 10-14 in Indianapolis.

The ACVS Foundation presents the award each year during the meeting, along with others for posters and publications, to honor outstanding surgical residents-in-training. Tinga’s presentation involved research from her graduate studies focusing on cranial cruciate ligament disease, or CCL, in dogs.

Under the mentorship of UF faculty members Stan Kim, BV.Sc, Dan Lewis, D.V.M., Scott Banks, Ph.D. and others, Tinga has been researching motion in the knee joint of dogs affected by CCL. A common condition in dogs, CCL results in joint instability and leads to the development of painful osteoarthritis and meniscal damage.

Tinga’s work is aimed at precisely defining the motion in the knee of dogs naturally affected with CCL degeneration as well as after one of two commonly used surgical treatments compared to their normal knee, in order to determine what is occurring in the diseased state and whether knee motion can be normalized with these widespread, commonly used surgical therapies.