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The Comparative Oncology Program
A Whitepaper for the Campaign Steering Committee
THE VISION
Many of the most pressing health challenges such as cancer can be addressed, even solved, by engaging
one of humans’ lifelong allies: companion animals. When scientists and clinicians from both the human
and veterinary worlds work together as teams, solutions to human health dilemmas can be discovered
more rapidly and efficiently.
By seamlessly merging the worlds of human and veterinary cancer research to discern the biologic
underpinnings of tumors, developing novel biomarkers and treatments, the new Comparative
Oncology Program will ultimately improve outcomes in both human and companion animal
patients. This innovative approach will expedite the commercial availability of novel anti-cancer
agents by compressing the often lengthy drug development timeline by as much as half a decade.
Now is the right time, with the availability of research resources and the long-standing partnership
between the world’s top School of Veterinary Medicine and a NCI-designated Comprehensive
Cancer Center to innovate the approach to treating cancer.
THE RIGHT TIME AND THE RIGHT PLACE
Cancer is a public health hazard. Nearly 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed this year alone.
Although there are 14 million survivors in the United States, it is anticipated that more than 600,000 will
die from cancer and cancer-related causes this year. Over the next 20 years, cancer is anticipated to grow
from 14 million new diagnoses globally each year to 22 million. Partnerships that bring the
understanding of cancer across the animal/human continuum must expand in order to overcome this
devastating disease. The traditional models for studying cancer in the laboratory such as mouse models
have proven to be poorly predictive of what will actually happen to human patients. Mice lack many key
characteristics of human cancer. Man’s companion animals such as dogs are proving to be a more
predictive complementary model of human malignancies. After all, these animals cohabitate with their
humans and are therefore exposed to the same environmental carcinogens. In fact, naturally occurring
cancers in canines tend to share common pathologic and molecular features of cancers that develop in
humans. Thus, studying cancers in companion animals will much better inform the study of human
carcinogenesis, tumor progression, metastasis and treatment response or resistance. In essence, this is
what is defined as comparative oncology. There is no better time than now for UC Davis to leverage its
considerable strengths in oncology research (both in the lab and in the clinic) across the veterinary and
human spectrum in order to ultimately improve patient outcomes.
THE OPPORTUNITY
With recognized strength in One Health, UC Davis brings to bear an impressive collection of faculty
who work with animal health, human health, basic science and environmental science. The synergy of
these four constitutes the university of the 21st century. The UC Davis One Health Institute, supported
through funding from the NIH and USAID, has already made breakthrough discoveries using animal
models to inform human health. With the availability of established UC Davis strengths in tumor
biology, genomics, metabolomics, agriculture and engineering, the university is prepared to use its
existing tools and resources to better understand human cancer biology.
The strengths that UC Davis brings to bear will inform the diagnosis and treatment of pet dogs—nearly
one million of which are diagnosed with cancer each year. And because of the biological similarity with
humans, that knowledge will certainly advance the treatment of human cancers.
Because naturally occurring cancers in dogs more closely resemble human cancers, treatment testing in
canines will bring expanded and quicker knowledge to the treatment of malignancies in humans.
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Comparative oncology uniquely partners veterinary oncologists with human medical oncologists, the
pharmaceutical industry and academic centers, all working to improve knowledge and outcomes for
treating both animals and humans with cancer. This opportunity to treat beloved pet animals while
informing ways to save human lives is impossible to overlook. Already UC Davis has been engaged in
five clinical trials of novel anti-cancer therapeutics that are being tested initially in companion animals
prior to their testing in humans. Nonprofits such as the Morris Animal Foundation and the Sean Parker
Foundation have invested in the field. As awareness is extended about the benefit to both dogs and
humans, hope is growing that there will be novel treatments and effective pharmaceuticals developed
quicker, more efficiently and with less toxicity. The idea of curing cancer across the veterinary and
human spectrum has already attracted a significant private gift to the School of Veterinary Medicine
from a grateful patient and models the potential to grow the program with further private investment. In
addition, the Cancer Center’s Comparative Oncology is recognized as a formal research program by the
National Cancer Institute.
Comparative oncology opens the door to better understanding how to effectively treat canine cancer and
reduce pain and suffering for beloved pets. Clinical trials with pet animals reveal information that is
beneficial to dogs and humans alike. Information on toxicity, drug dose and schedule, predictive
biomarkers, response to therapy, toxicity and other critical data are ascertained. Because of the similarity
in both environmental risk factors and tumor biology, the parallels are changing the way we understand
cancer. Animals in the trials are treated and closely supervised by board-supervised veterinary
oncologists who are invested in finding ways to treat and move cancer to remission. The challenge of
addressing the disease in pets is urgent since more than half of all dogs over the age of 10 are diagnosed
with cancer. Already, the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and Comprehensive Cancer Center
researchers have found success in translating the results of a canine cancer clinical trial to a human
clinical trial and have laid the infrastructure of knowledge to expand its capacity for other innovative
treatments.
UC Davis is poised to work closely with its own investigators and pharmaceutical companies in the
cancer drug discovery process in order to provide a necessary intermediary step to move new anti-cancer
drugs through clinical trials. Cancer therapies often take more than a decade to move from discovery to
validation and ultimately to market. It can take up to $2 billion in investments to move one drug forward
to clinical trials. And then, about 60% of those drugs fail in human trials. Already working with
pharmaceutical industry partners, UC Davis is making breakthroughs in many drug discovery projects,
including the treatment of pediatric tumors to lessen the devastating side effects of chemotherapy while
preserving its curative properties. For example, ongoing work with canine brain tumors in the area of
overcoming radiation resistance has led to FDA-approved human trials. Additionally, an innovative
immunotherapy trial in dogs with melanoma and sarcoma, which showed remarkable responses in these
animals, is now being translated into human trials. The knowledge base, infrastructure and team strength
is in place at UC Davis to expand its partnerships with industry. The potential payoffs are self-evident:
new treatments will get approved and be available for patient use quicker because they were validated in
more clinically relevant canine patients instead of mice.
Clinicians of the 21st century are trained in cross-disciplinary areas in order to translate the relationship
between animal and human health into tangible new therapies against cancer. Funding for this proposed
program is envisioned to expand UC Davis’ training of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and new
faculty in oncology in both animal and human settings. Already, a faculty member in the School of
Veterinary Medicine, who is trained and certified in Internal Medicine with a subspecialty of Oncology,
began her training at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center in a cutting-edge partnership that will
further her understanding of the animal-human health continuum. She will bring back that knowledge to
the classroom to train future clinical leaders. This support for students and young faculty would be
greatly enhanced with support for this kind of innovative learning and teaching.
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MOVING FORWARD
This program will require expansion of existing space as well as new equipment to advance the treatment
of the patients.
The Comparative Oncology Program will attract up to five new faculty in the areas of pharmacological
genetics and drug development and will seek endowment funding for these positions. The program has
recently leveraged a $5 million pledge from a grateful client of the Veterinary Medical Teaching
Hospital to develop a new medical oncology position devoted to cancer therapy benefitting both animals
and people. These additional positions will allow recruitment of faculty in multiple areas of need
including pharmacogenomics (drug-genetic interactions), bioinformatics and medicinal chemistry.
The program will need current use funding to accelerate innovation and leverage current resources. Staff
support will be needed to support the program’s infrastructure.
In addition, the expanded program will allow for seed funding to investigators who have a funding gap
for feasibility testing, particularly in pharmacological toxicity. With a solid grounding in
entrepreneurship, the School and the Cancer Center will further engage with the Graduate School of
Management to continue to grow its capacity for cancer innovation start-up companies (three are already
in development).
The total cost is estimated to be $50 million.
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