Dogs

Dr. Timothy Fan (ACPP), veterinary oncologist and professor at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and a Program Leader for the Cancer Center at Illinois, is leading two clinical trials using similar immunotherapies to treat dogs with malignant melanoma. The novel approaches, developed in partnership with cancer researchers based in Boston, have yielded encouraging results in canine patients, and human trials using the same therapeutic platforms are expected to begin in 2023.

Although the microbiome—the collection of all microbes that live in the body—in the fecal matter of dogs has been investigated extensively, those studies have mostly been limited to domesticated dogs. In a new study, researchers have sampled the fecal microbiomes across diverse geographical populations to better understand what they look like around the world.

Coprolites, or fossilized dog feces, are often used to understand the dietary preferences of ancient civilizations. However, the samples are often contaminated, making the analysis difficult. A new study, published in Scientific Reports, uses different techniques to improve the investigation of coprolites. 

A study reported in the journal Science offers an enhanced view of the origins and ultimate fate of the first dogs in the Americas. The dogs were not domesticated North American wolves, as some have speculated, but likely followed their human counterparts over a land bridge that once connected North Asia and the Americas, the study found.

At the University of Illinois, an engineer teamed up with a veterinarian to test a bone cancer drug delivery system in animals bigger than the standard animal model, the mouse. They chose dogs – mammals closer in size and biology to humans – with naturally occurring bone cancers, which also are a lot like human bone tumors.

Cancer drug first tested in pet dogs begins human trials

A new drug that prompts cancer cells to self-destruct while sparing healthy cells is now entering phase I clinical trials in humans. The drug, called PAC-1, first showed promise in the treatment of pet dogs with spontaneously occurring cancers, and is still in clinical trials in dogs with osteosarcoma.

A new study suggests that dogs may have first successfully migrated to the Americas only about 10,000 years ago, thousands of years after the first human migrants crossed a land bridge from Siberia to North America.

Cancer Drug Tested in Pet Dogs is Now Bound for Human Trials

Thanks to a new $2 million investment, a drug that spurs cancer cells to self-destruct while sparing healthy cells is on the road to human clinical trials. The compound, known as PAC-1, has so far proven safe and has promising anti-cancer effects in cell culture, in mouse models of cancer and in pet dogs with spontaneously occurring lymphomas and osteosarcomas.