DR. DARREN WOOD — PATHOBIOLOGY
Donations to Pet Trust are helping OVC researchers working to develop a simple, non-invasive blood test that may predict how canine lymphoma patients will respond to therapy. One of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in dogs, it resembles non-Hodgkins lymphoma in people and most dogs with lymphoma will go into remission following chemotherapy. However, there are no good tools available to predict which dogs will respond well, and which will suffer a relapse. In human cancer patients, changes in protein molecules called microRNAs (miRNAs) present in a variety of tissues, including blood, have been shown to correlate with presence of cancer. Recent preliminary evidence has shown a similar correlation in dogs with lymphoma. This project aims to determine whether blood and preserved tissue samples from canine lymphoma patients are suitable for miRNA detection and how the presence or absence of miRNAs correlates with treatment outcomes.