Translating Veterinary Medicine

Translational medicine brings foundational scientific lab discoveries into new clinical treatments for animals and humans. The journey can sometimes be long and arduous with research dead ends, U-turns and setbacks. But when a novel therapy finally proves successful in halting disease progress and improving quality of life—for two-legged or four-legged animals—UC Davis researchers say that’s when long years of persistence make the process worthwhile.

The term translational medicine also refers to the bidirectional transfer of knowledge in treating naturally occurring diseases in animals and humans.

At the UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine, close collaboration among researchers and clinicians (and some who wear both hats)—within the university and far beyond—has resulted in advances for new treatments and cures across specialties and species, thanks to translational approaches. Here are a few success stories:

Bench to Bedside Miracle: Meet Snoopy

It isn’t often that researchers involved in the fundamental aspects of translational medicine get to meet a patient who has benefitted from a decade or more of basic science. So, when Dr. Stephen McSorley and his postdoctoral researcher Dr. Marietta Ravesloot-Chavez met Snoopy on the last day of his clinical trial, there were lots of ear scratches to deliver.

“We’re often stuck in the lab, thinking about details to make the research better,” said McSorley. “We don’t often get to see a patient go through a clinical trial and actually see it work. This is pretty fun!”

Snoopy is a 12-year-old beagle who participated in a clinical trial of a novel canine PDL1 antibody. The trial was created to investigate whether a dog’s own immune system can be recruited to fight metastatic cancer. While similar human PDL1 antibodies have been used to transform treatment and outcomes for some human cancers in the past 15 years, human antibodies generally can’t be used for dogs.

“This was a treatment we knew was helpful in people, now we’re trying to bring that to dogs,” said Dr. Rob Rebhun, one of the veterinary oncologists who serves as a co-investigator for the trial along with Dr. Sami Al-Nadaf.

The idea for developing a canine PDL1 antibody came from a discussion that McSorley had with DVM students in a class more than a decade ago. They asked him if there were innovative immunotherapy treatments for cancer in dogs. That curiosity started a journey of collaboration with Drs. Rebhun, Al-Nadaf, and many others.

It took several years to create and test the drugs in McSorley’s lab before they could advance to clinical trials. The way these drugs work, McSorley explained, is to remove the brake that a cancer puts on the immune system. A patient mounts an immune response to a disease like melanoma, but when the cancer turns the immune system off, their body can no longer fight 
the disease.

“All these drugs do is take that brake away and let the patient cure themselves,” McSorley said. “Some patients that don’t respond in human medicine aren’t making a strong enough initial response to the tumor, but if they are making a strong response, and you can take this brake off, they can cure themselves. So basically, Snoopy has been curing himself, he just needed a little bit of help.”

Since the trial launch a year ago, 14 dogs have participated. Snoopy had a complete response, meaning the large pulmonary nodules first apparent on his lungs have disappeared in follow-up X-ray and CT scans. The antibody appears to have slowed growth or reduced tumor size in three other dogs. The trial is now recruiting additional dogs to receive a higher dose, hoping response rates will improve.

For Snoopy’s owner, Anja Trosbjerg, the results have been nothing short of a miracle.

“We didn’t know how long we had left with him, so we decided to make the best of it,” she said. “I honestly didn’t expect this therapy to work, but there is no doubt in my mind that a miracle happened. I’m so grateful for the team here.”

The development of the drug, this trial and many others are made possible by generous donors who have been crucial in advancing translational research that can save and prolong quality of life for our companion animals.

UC Davis researchers are actively enrolling more dogs in a new phase of the PDL1 trial. For more information, please contact the Veterinary Center for Clinical Trials.

Study the Innovative Immunotherapy for Canine Lung Metastases: The CAALM Study.

Studying Brain Tumors in Dogs and People

Dogs and humans have a lot in common when it comes to brain tumors. From gliomas to meningiomas, these tumors share striking genetic and molecular similarities across species.

“Brain tumors remain some of the hardest cancers to treat and for many patients—both animals and humans—outcomes have changed very little over the past several decades; many brain tumors remain incurable,” said Dr. Christine Toedebusch, a veterinary neuro-oncologist who joined UC Davis in 2018.

She’s hoping to change that with the recently launched UC Davis Translational Brain Tumor Center (TBTC) that brings together  veterinarians, physicians, and brain tumor scientists to improve brain tumor treatment in companion animals and humans, alike.  Led by Toedebusch alongside Dr. Jessica Lawrence and  Drs. Orwa Aboud and Yuanpei Li from the School of Medicine, this pioneering program leverages a rich network of research and discovery to bridge the gap between the laboratory and the clinic.

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“People helping dogs. Dogs helping people. Advancing care for all.”

Visit the Translational Brain Tumor Center online.

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Because canines develop spontaneous brain tumors like humans and share similar environment and immune system complexities, dogs enrolled in veterinary clinical trials offer a unique opportunity to accelerate discovery and treatment for human brain tumor patients. Two current clinical trials through the center have been established to look at different pieces of the research puzzle.

The CARE trial (Combined Autophagy inhibition with radiation therapy to improve Efficacy in canine glioma) seeks to establish the safety of a new experimental drug for dogs diagnosed with gliomas as well as study the delivery mechanism. Li, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine and associate director of Therapeutic Development for the TBTC, serves as the principal investigator for this study looking into whether a novel therapy can block a process that cancer cells use to protect themselves and survive. By studying this process while dogs are also receiving radiation therapy, the hope is to improve how well the tumor responds to treatment.

The second PRISM Trial (Precision Research Integrating Symptoms and Molecular biology in canine glioma) aims to follow dogs throughout their illness to learn how quickly their tumors grow and how the disease progresses over time. Led by Toedebusch, the main goals are to track disease progression in dogs who have not received treatment or are treated with radiation therapy, and to study how the tumor's biological features (including tissue type, genetics, and immune profile) affect how long dogs remain stable before their disease worsens.

Toedebusch was awarded a prestigious National Institutes of Health R37 MERIT award to launch the PRISM trial and support this work for 7 years.   

“By combining clinical information with detailed analyses of each tumor’s genes and immune characteristics, we hope to identify subtypes of gliomas,” Toedebusch said. “It’s important to start teasing these gliomas apart and classifying them. Our long-term goal is to develop more personalized, targeted treatments—like precision medicine in human cancer care—to help dogs with these tumors.”

The collaborative efforts within UC Davis veterinary and medical schools and the Comprehensive Cancer Center that have fostered the development of the Translational Brain Tumor Center are a testament to how the One Health approach creates meaningful benefits for companion animals and humans by advancing care and accelerating discovery.

“We envision a multi-species framework that will optimize the pipeline from laboratory research to clinical care, accelerating therapeutic breakthroughs for brain tumor patients across species,” Toedebusch said. “Our long-term goal is for UC Davis and the Brain Tumor Center to be the hub of comparative neuro-oncology in the country—we already have the people and expertise here to drive it.”

Using Gene Therapy to Help Horses

Chat was a six-year-old Thoroughbred gelding who had transitioned from a career on the racetrack to eventing competitions when he began exhibiting erratic head shaking. It looked like he was experiencing electrical shocks to his face, and it didn’t matter if the halter and bridle were removed, or whether he had a rider or not. Bright sun made it worse.

When this condition was first noticed and documented in horses, clinicians referred to it as idiopathic headshaking because the cause was unknown. People thought it was a behavioral issue. A little over a decade ago, Drs. Monica Aleman and John Madigan at UC Davis were some of the first veterinarians to establish that the trigeminal nerve—one of 12 cranial nerves and the electric service station of the brain—was misfiring. The condition was renamed equine trigeminal-mediated headshaking.

“Horses impacted by this condition are in pain and trying to tell us something,” said Dr. Carrie Finno, director of the Center for Equine Health (CEH) and Chat’s owner. “The trigeminal nerve branches out to the eyes, nostrils, lower jaw and maxilla. It’s an extensive nerve in a horse’s face and can be incredibly painful when it’s overactive.”

Humans can suffer from a similar condition known as trigeminal neuralgia. Patients have described a searing, burning pain from the base of their skull through their face as the nerve misfires. The condition is also known as “suicide disease” due to the extreme pain it causes.

The difference between human and equine patients is that humans can communicate what they feel; horses can’t. The headshaking in horses can cause them to strike at their face with a hoof and creates situations that become dangerous not only for affected horses, but the humans who care for them.

Despite an assortment of imaging and exams from an expert veterinary team at UC Davis, experimental supplements and goggles to block the sun, Chat’s condition kept progressing to the point where he was miserable and couldn’t stop the headshaking. The decision was finally made to humanely euthanize.

But Chat’s story doesn’t stop there. In 2025, Finno attended a genetics conference where she met Dr. Ana Moreno, founder and CEO of Navega Therapeutics. Moreno had been working on gene therapy in a mouse model with the goal of developing a treatment for trigeminal neuralgia in humans. She had no idea it also naturally occurred in horses. Their conversation led to developing a research collaboration on a clinical trial in horses.

“We’re really excited to get this going and see if it will work,” Finno said. “The early studies in mice are quite promising, and affected horses have no other options.”

The research team, comprised of Drs. Scott Katzman, Carter Judy, Monica Aleman, Kevin Wollard, Mathieu Spriet, and Finno, first needed to establish that the gene therapy would work in horse neurons. Preliminary studies demonstrate successful silencing of the pain channel using this gene therapy. Next, the team will be launching initial safety trials in two horses early next year. Once safety is established, they will recruit 8-10 affected horses to test the novel treatment’s efficacy. The research is funded by the CEH.

“As a veterinarian who strives to treat these conditions, I couldn’t fix Chat and it wasn’t for lack of trying, or a lack of amazing experts who tried to help,” Finno said. “Collaborating with experts in human medicine on a study to benefit both species … I’m hoping that’s the power of Chat’s story moving forward and that he will be the legacy that pushes research in that direction. This could have a huge translational impact for people with neuralgia. If we can show that this works in horses with the same disease, that will speed up clinical trials for people.”

More Than Skin Deep

Human and animal skin share a lot of overlap in terms of structure, genetic disorders and pathological responses, which makes dermatology a fascinating field for Dr. Tyler Jordan.

“We see many conditions in species such as dogs, cats and horses that bear strong resemblance to human diseases, including skin cancers and atopic dermatitis,” Tyler said. “Unfortunately, we’re far behind human medicine in the treatments we have available for some dermatological conditions—especially in animals beyond dogs. For me, what’s most interesting are the gaps in knowledge and figuring out how to close those.”

After joining the faculty in January of 2024, Jordan started building the infrastructure to collect samples from naturally occurring dermatological diseases that clinicians see daily to build collaborative research projects with UC Davis Health and beyond. One of his current projects is studying cutaneous lymphoma, a devastating and uncommon form of skin cancer in dogs.

He is collaborating with more than 30 different veterinary clinics and veterinary schools across the country to gather more samples to better understand this disease, which will inform the development of better treatment options.

“I’m a very visual learner,” Tyler said. “In this specialty, you don’t need some kind of advanced MRI or other imaging to see the disease in front of you, but you need expertise and experience. That’s the art of what we do: figuring out diseases, how to diagnose them and manage them in the long term.”

Canine atopic dermatitis is one clear example of where experience in veterinary medicine has predicted and educated the development of drugs in humans, according to Tyler. This naturally occurring inflammatory disease is often termed eczema in humans and causes moderate to severe itch and a variety of other symptoms, including secondary bacterial and yeast skin infections.

In humans, the condition often pops up in childhood. Most people grow out of it; less than 8% maintain the condition as adults. For human medicine, physicians rely heavily on topical treatments. But that’s hard to do with dogs, he explained, because they tend to lick it off. As a result, veterinary medicine has had to rely heavily on developing oral medications to treat atopic dermatitis.

In 2013, the oral medication oclacitinib (Apoquel®) came onto the veterinary market and revolutionized how veterinarians treat itch in dogs. 

“Prior to that, we only had access to oral immunosuppressive drugs, like steroids and modified cyclosporine, and those carried unwanted side effects,” he explained. “This medication kicks in rapidly to decrease itch in about 24 hours, has a better safety profile, and improves quality of life with minor side effects. It was the first of its kind to treat atopic dermatitis in animals. Our clinical experience using oclacitinib informed the further development of similar drugs for use in humans with eczema.”

Another similar drug, lokivetmab (Cytopoint®), hit the veterinary market in 2016 as an injectable synthetic antibody that binds to a cytokine known as interleukin 31—a main itch mediator of dogs, humans, mice, horses, and monkeys. It provides relief from itch for 4-8 weeks and is safe to use in young puppies and even dogs with cancer.

“There are now similar medications coming onto the market to treat itch in human atopic dermatitis that targets the interleukin 31 receptor,” he said. “We may be far behind human medicine in some diseases, but this is one example that can speak to the translational opportunities that we have.”

In the past two years, three more drugs have come to market to treat itch in dogs. That’s great, Tyler said, but we haven’t had the same advances for cats or horses.

“This is where I’m trying to collaborate with our physician  counterparts to find opportunities and new drug targets to treat these animals and provide them with a higher level of care.”

Scientist’s Best Friend

Translational medicine in ophthalmology has a deep background rooted in comparative anatomy and shared disease models. Because dogs share a high number of inherited eye disorders with humans (like glaucoma, cataracts, and dry eye), they serve as crucial bridges for advancing both veterinary and human clinical therapies.

The school’s Comparative Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences Laboratory team led by Professor Sara Thomasy is currently investigating cutting-edge optogenetic therapy to restore vision in dogs with sudden acquired retinal degeneration syndrome (SARDS). As an emerging medical technique, optogenetic therapy uses gene therapy to introduce light-sensitive proteins called opsins into surviving cells, allowing them to be controlled by light.

The researchers (from UC Davis Health and Weill School of Veterinary Medicine) aim to translate knowledge learned from dogs into clinical trials for humans that experience blindness from retinal disease, particularly outer retinal disease that involves the cones and rods. These specialized light-sensitive cells in the retina at the back of the eye convert light into nerve signals for the brain. When they degenerate or die, blindness results. But bipolar and retinal ganglion cells are still connected to each other and the brain.

“If we can insert a light sensing gene in these remaining connected cells, they become little photoreceptors,” Thomasy explained. “They sense light and we can restore vision. The vision is very abnormal because these cells aren’t designed to sense light and you’re missing some of the input from other cells that modify the signal, but when you are going from complete absence of vision to low vision, that is still very powerful.”

Optogenetic therapy is an ideal therapy for SARDS because it doesn’t rely on knowing the underlying cause for a particular disease; it can work for a variety of different retinal diseases.

“That’s very different than prototypical gene therapy where you’re just fixing one genetic mutation,” Thomasy said. “That’s a very exciting element to this work.”

Thanks to a Reaching Across the Causeway award from 2024, the team conducted a pilot study to treat six dogs that were blind in one eye with SARDS. The dogs were enrolled for a year, but the team continues to monitor them and data analysis is ongoing.

The scientists are following up with detailed behavioral testing as well as owner questionnaires to get their experience and will be submitting the research paper for publication. They also ran a crowdfunding campaign to support the study.

One of the dog owners in the first clinical trial was so inspired by the promise of this therapy to help other dogs and hopefully humans that they gave $50k toward the next study phase where the team will collaborate with researchers at UC Berkeley and the University of Pittsburgh to refine the therapy.

“Companion animals are an amazing translational resource that we can investigate novel therapies in that can translate to the human condition,” Thomasy said. “Our lab’s mission is to use basic science to benefit patients. We strive to see therapies that we study help animals and get to humans within our lifetimes. That’s our goal and it’s very gratifying!”