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Last Updated: 10/11/2023

The Dog Oncology Grant Supplement (DOGS) Program

Supports collaborative, multidisciplinary research in canine oncology that intersects with two or more of the following areas: immuno-oncology (IO), radiation treatment (RT), and imaging

The Dog Oncology Grant Supplement (DOGS) Program

Canines as a Translational Model

Canines may be a good model for understanding cancer in humans.

  • Cancers in pet dogs and humans arise spontaneously.
  • Dogs and humans have similar environments, genomes, immune responses, tumor complexity/heterogeneity, coevolution of the tumor microenvironment, course of disease, and treatment responses.
  • Treatment responses in canine patients can be similar to humans relative to models in rodents.
  • Canine imaging and treatment delivery systems (e.g., radiation therapies) are comparable or the same as those used with humans, providing superior scalability and potential for the transfer of treatment combination research into human clinical trials.
  • Dogs have a shorter lifespan and disease progression than people, allowing for faster clinical trials.
  • Researchers have the flexibility to test investigational agents in pet dogs, even in early or minimal disease states.

Purpose of the DOGS Program

The DOGS Program is supporting collaborative, multidisciplinary research in canine oncology. DOGS applications must propose a new collaborative project that intersects two or more of the following topic areas: IO, RT, and imaging.

The goals are to:

  • Leverage the existing NCI infrastructure in companion canine cancer research to facilitate new high-quality collaborative opportunities that integrate across approaches in IO, imaging, and RT
  • Enable new cross-correlatives and response measures to optimize treatment approaches using companion canine cancer research to maximize the translational benefits for people with cancer

Structure of the Awards

Awards are being shared between a current NCI grantee and at least one partnering collaborator who is not named on the parent award. Either the PI of the parent award or the collaborator must have canine cancer research expertise. DOGS-eligible parent awards must have an NCI primary assignment through any of the following mechanisms: R01, R37, U01, P01, P30, P50, U19, U24, or U54.

Awardees

Subject Parent Grant Supplement PI(s) Coinvestigators Collaborating Teams
Using myeloid-targeted immunotherapy and radiation therapy to treat sinonasal carcinoma in dogs P50CA261605; Colorado Head and Neck Cancer SPORE (Jimeno, Antonio); University of Colorado Denver Mary-Keara Boss Steven Dow, Lyndah Chow, Daniel Regan University of Colorado Denver, Colorado State University, UC Davis
Validating PET imaging as a non-invasive platform to study CAR T cell dynamics in canine lymphoma R37CA266344; Towards safer and more effective CAR T Cell therapy through the modulation of myeloid cytokines (Kenderian, Saad); Mayo Clinic Rochester Saad Kenderian and Wesley Wierson Jeffrey Bryan, Alex Abel Mayo Clinic Rochester, LifEngine Animal Health (LEAH) Labs, University of Missouri Veterinary Health Center

Integrated Canine Data Commons (ICDC)

Data generated by the administrative supplement awards will be deposited into the ICDC after publication. Data from PRECINCT 2017 and PRECINCT 2022, two canine comparative oncology research networks, are making their data publicly available in the ICDC as well. The ICDC contains clinical trial information and correlative data derived from PRECINCT, the Center for Cancer Research's Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium (COTC), and sequencing data from studies supported by P30 grant supplements. The ICDC is a node in the larger NCI human Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) and was developed to incorporate genomic, proteomic, imaging, clinical trial, biomarker, population study, cancer model, and immuno-oncology data. The ICDC is a resource for canine researchers to submit and access data related to cancer and will empower the cancer research community to generate new hypotheses that can be tested by comparative analysis in dogs and humans.

Contact

For further information on the DOGS program and DCTD-supported canine comparative oncology research, contact Connie Sommers, PhD (sommersc@mail.nih.gov).