Celebrating the Breakthroughs Shaping the Future of Canine Health. Meet the 2025 Canine Health Discovery Award Finalists.

03019: Evaluation of a Targeted Anti αvβ3 Integrin Near-InfraRed (NIR-) Dye for Controlled Resection of Naturally Occurring Soft Tissue Sarcomas in Dogs

Soft tissue sarcomas are among the most common neoplasias of the skin and underlying tissue encountered in dogs. While they rarely spread to other organs, they tend to invade the surrounding tissues and grow unpredictably. Unfortunately, the surgeon cannot delineate these extensions by vision or touch, making it practically impossible to determine the true tumor […]

00978-A: Isolation of the Canine Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (TERT) Subunit and Generation of Dominant-Negative Mutants for Telomerase Inhibition

Cancer remains one of the leading causes of death in older dogs. Although surgical techniques, chemotherapy and radiation therapy have been refined over the past 30 years, for many types of cancer, survival rates remain low. Therefore, research has focused on identifying new ways to treat cancer, particularly focused on molecules and enzymes specifically produced […]

00349: Genetic Epidemiology of Cancer in the Golden Retriever

We have collected pedigrees from Golden Retrievers with cancer and constructed a large pedigree map of the affected dogs. As reported in the 1998 GRCA National Health Survey, the most common tumors have been lymphoma and hemangiosarcoma as well as other soft tissue sarcomas. These were aggressive cancers and many occurred at a young age. […]

02636-A: Development of RNA in-situ Hybridization to Identify T Regulatory Cells and their Function within the Tumor Microenvironment of Canine Oral Malignant Melanoma

Oral malignant melanomas (OMM) in dogs have a high potential to metastasize or spread. While OMM is responsive to immunotherapy, responses are varied and difficult to predict, and only a subset of patients respond to immunotherapy. Therefore, it is vital to identify dogs with the best chance of responding to immunotherapy, understand which dogs may […]

01689-A: Increasing the Effectiveness of Radiation Therapy in Treatment of Mast Cell Tumors

Canine mast cell tumors are the most common cutaneous malignant tumors in dogs. Histologic grades, I, II, and III, provide very useful information because they are indicative of a patient’s prognosis. Treatment options depend on negative prognostic factors, but in general surgery and radiation therapy are very effective. Chemotherapy could be applied if the patient […]

00678: Generation and Analysis of Canine Bone Marrow Derived Mast Cells

Disorders of mast cells, particularly mast cell tumors (MCTs), are common in dogs and there is now evidence that many of these exhibit breed specific tendencies, suggesting underlying genetic causes. This is particularly important for MCTs in which certain breeds (e.g., Pugs) develop benign disease while others (e.g., Chinese Shar-Pei) develop malignant disease. In comparison […]

01093A: Positional Cloning of the Gene(s) for Gastric Cancer in the Chow Chow

Several canine breeds including Chow Chows, Belgian Sheepdogs and Tervuren, Keeshonden, Norwegian elkhounds, Akitas, Eurasiers, and Scottish Terriers have an increased risk on developing gastric carcinoma (stomach cancer). Furthermore, examination of pedigrees suggests that this cancer may result from a faulty gene or genes. Our goal is to identify the gene(s) that predispose this cancer […]

00878-A: MicroRNA Expression in the Domestic Dog and Its Role in Canine Cancer

A new group of genes, termed microRNAs, have been discovered to be associated with various cancers in the human. These genes are also found in dogs and have the exact same sequence as the human counterparts. Due to the great similarity between the human and dog, we hypothesize that these genes may also play a […]