A major focus of the laboratory is to determine appropriate methods of introducing genetic material into muscle cells. The focus of our work is to specifically target gene therapy constructs to muscle cells, creating the possibility of in vivo gene therapy for myopathies. As part of the Neuromuscular Disease Group and the Sports Medicine Group , we actively search for novel models of myopathies in dogs and cats. Our goal is to identify the molecular bases of these myopathies and use them as models to determine the amount of scale up required to transfer gene therapy technology from the mouse to human patients. We have recently developed a feline model of breast cancer which we are planning to use to determine the efficacy of various gene therapy approaches to the treatment of this pervasive tumor.
Breast cancer is a major health concern of women, dogs and cats.
Therefore we hope that any advances made in the treatment of this tumor will benefit all species. The feline tumor model utilizes in utero transplantation to establish tolerance. We have developed the technology to accomplish this novel approach and are now utilizing it to explore a number of unique immunological questions. Other Interest Areas We have recently completed a series of studies under a grant from the AVMA Foundation, to create novel diagnostic techniques for the identifiaction of inherited disease genes in the dog. These studies use flourescent markers, the Applied Biosystems 373A automated DNA sequencer, and GeneScan software to identify mutant and normal alleles.