Cornell hackathon spotlights otitis, trich testing, and sterilization

Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine has named the winners of its 2026 Animal Health Hackathon, a 36-hour event that brought together 116 students across 25 teams to develop business-ready solutions for animal health challenges. The top projects focused on three very different problems: OtiVance, a proposed tool from team Otitis Fightus to identify the bacteria or yeast behind canine ear infections without ear cytology or lab culture; a rapid, veterinarian-administered diagnostic for bovine tritrichomonas from team The FantasTRICH Six; and an injectable, low-cost pet sterilization concept from team Big Red Dawgs aimed at animal population control. Four Tuskegee University veterinary students also participated through a Cornell-Tuskegee sister-program initiative. (news.cornell.edu)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the winners map closely to persistent practice pain points: faster in-clinic decision-making for common canine otitis cases, more practical reproductive-disease testing in cattle, and continued interest in nonsurgical sterilization as shelters and community medicine programs look for scalable population-control tools. Cornell framed this year’s challenge areas around workforce shortages, specialty-care backlogs, diagnostic bottlenecks, and access-to-care gaps, which helps explain why judges rewarded ideas built around speed, affordability, and field use. Bovine trichomoniasis remains a reportable disease concern in many states and is typically confirmed by organism detection via culture or PCR, while the broader push for single-dose nonsurgical sterilization continues to attract philanthropic and research funding. (hackathon.cornell.edu)

What to watch: The next question is whether any of these student concepts move beyond pitch-stage recognition into validation studies, startup formation, licensing, or pilot use in clinics, shelters, or food-animal practice. (vet.cornell.edu)