- Alright, we'll take a listen, okay?
- So the Penn Vet Cancer Center integrates both clinical
and research elements of our cancer mission
in a really effective way.
It's one of the most effective partnerships of
both of these areas of our endeavor that I know
in the country and in fact worldwide.
- We try to integrate everything from
the most basic biology behind it
all the way through to the cancer patient.
So, really this idea of going back and forth,
what are the problems in the clinic,
what's their scientific basis.
Can we then develop understanding of it
at a level that we can develop Novel Therapeutics
and bring 'em right back from the lab into the clinic.
And so the cancer center was meant to really
put that all under one very unified umbrella.
- For me, being able to do both clinical work
and the research allows me to sort of change
the care that I can provide to my patients
outside of what I can do in the OR.
And really for those patients that didn't have
a superior outcome on the horizon.
We might be able to change that.
- So, this collaborative team approach is highly beneficial
and it's essential, so, lemme give you an example.
If we see a patient, a dog with a tumor called
hemangiosarcoma, very aggressive tumor
and that patient will come in through our emergency service.
That patient will be taken to surgery,
we'll have the effected organ, the spleen removed
and that patient will then recover
and go on to receive chemotherapy and be treated.
But in the meantime, the tumor
that has come out of that patient.
That usually would then go to pathology,
the pathologists look at it, they define the tumor type
and they say yes, unfortunately your patient has
hemangiosarcoma and that's usually where that would end.
But the tumor in this case comes to the labs.
So now the researchers have access to that tissue
and so what we can do with that tissue,
is now we can take it into many different types
of research programs.
- We have a very good and deep collaboration
with the Abramson Cancer Center.
So, we are one of the few nationwide and in fact worldwide
Vet cancer centers who has a very good
and ongoing collaboration with a human cancer center.
For example, when cancers like bone cancers called
osteosarcoma and more frequent in our patients
then more common then they are in pediatric patients
in humans and kids and so our studies are able to inform
their therapies to the benefit of both parties.
- What we've realized is especially when you start to
consider the immune system
and the rest of the tumor microenvironment,
we'll require looking at models or systems or in patients
that much more resemble human tumors.
That includes that the tumor arises spontaneously.
For the same genetic reasons as cancer develops in a human
that it develops in the model system.
So that model system in someways is canines and cats.
- People whose animals have cancer
are going to come to a Veterinary cancer center.
You know and they're coming here for the best clinical care
but many of them also are really very interested in making
a difference, coming to a center where you can offer
something more both clinically for the patient
but also so that we can learn more about that cancer
and make a difference in the future.
It's really very important to owners
and it gives them hope and it gives them a sense of sort of
taking back control a little bit
and fighting back a little bit.
(inspirational music)