By Trelle Burdeniuk

Cancer research going to the dogs at the U of S

Apr 19, 2013 | 5:25 PM

From the petri dish to the dog bowl, cancer research at the University of Saskatchewan is now using dogs.

“Dogs are really the best model. They develop spontaneous tumors that are just like human tumours. They're treated in the same way, same chemotherapy,” said Troy Harkness, a professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the U of S College of Medicine.

He and other researchers from the U of S College of Medicine and the Western College of Veterinary Medicine are studying the effect of the drug, metformin, on drug-resistant lymphoma.

“People come back, dogs come back with untreatable cancer. So, our goal is to try to figure out how to treat those dogs that become drug-resistant,” he said.

Metformin is a drug that is generally used to treat Type 2 diabetes, but Harkness said its potential for helping cancer is enormous.

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“We have what we're calling a Trojan Horse effect where metformin comes in, lowers the defenses of this drug-resistant tumour and allows it to be treated again with the same or a different type of chemotherapy.”

“Right now, people with drug-resistant cancer, there's no hope unfortunately. When that happens, you just treat them the best you can and keep them as comfortable as possible. If this could go towards helping these people, give people hope who didn't have hope prior, that was really a benefit.”

The researchers are currently working with one dog in Saskatoon – a 10-year-old golden retriever mix named Jake.

Valerie MacDonald, associate professor of veterinary medical oncology in the Department of Small Animal Clinical Science at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, said dogs, like Jake, are very beneficial to study.

“Their lifespan is shorter than ours and so we can follow pretty much the same progression just in a shorter timeframe,” she said.

Already, results from initial testing are looking good.

“Our preliminary data so far is extremely encouraging. We're really, really happy with it. I'm convinced it's going to work,” said Harkness.

Harkness has been studying the effect of metformin on cancer cells in the lab and found metformin has helped every cancer they've tried including breast cancer, colon cancer and leukemia by stopping the growth of cancer cells and then when combined with another chemotherapy drug, more reception to the chemo and more killing of the bad cells.

He said using dogs is extremely helpful as it will provide faster data which he hopes to publish.

“(With) human trials, you're looking at five to 10 years down the road. With the dog trials, if we get enough dogs this year, next year we'll have some really good data.”

In order to have better data, Harkness and MacDonald are looking for more dogs with drug-resistant lymphoma to participate in the study.

“We are looking for dogs who have been diagnosed with lymphoma, who have been treated with chemotherapy and are now at the point they have come out of remission,” MacDonald said.

Any dogs who participate in the study will receive free cancer treatments.

Harkness said the dogs don't necessarily have to be physically present at the U of S clinic, instead he wants to examine tissue from the tumours throughout the dogs' treatment. MacDonald explained they have interest from a vet in Boston, who has a dog with the drug-resistant lymphoma.

This study has some funding from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine and the U of S College of Medicine, but researchers are looking for more in order to extend the study for two to five years.

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