Conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy has been the mainstay of medical oncology in the human and veterinary medical fields.  Cytotoxic drugs show clear benefits for the treatment of cancer, however, intrinsic or acquired drug resistance can limit the efficacy of conventional chemotherapy.  Efforts to increase effectiveness of conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy rely on dose escalation.  However, indiscriminant toxic effects of these drugs against both neoplastic and normal host cells create a narrow therapeutic index.  Therefore, dose escalation can create negative effects on quality of life with marginal improvements in survival outcomes.

Over the past 15-20 years efforts have dramatically increased in the development of targeted chemotherapy.  Through a variety of different molecular or technical approaches, chemotherapy drugs can be selectively targeted to cancer cells, thereby limiting negative impact created by conventional drugs on normal tissues.  This seminar will provide a brief overview of a few of the advantages of targeted cytotoxic chemotherapy over conventional drugs, with special focus on a  folate conjugated therapeutic drugs and imaging agents being evaluated at the Purdue University Veterinary Teaching Hospital for the treatment of spontaneous urinary bladder transitional cell carcinoma. One (1) Continuing Education (CE) credit is offered for this seminar.

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The hormone melatonin has been shown to have significant anti-convulsant effects in both lab animals and also in humans. Studies have also shown that epileptic humans actually have significantly lower inter-ictal serum melatonin levels compared to unaffected people. The purpose of Dr. Thomovsky’s study is to determine if dogs with seizures have lower inter-ictal serum melatonin levels as compared to normal dogs.

Dr. Stephanie Thomovsky is a faculty candidate for the Clinical Assistant Professor of Veterinary Neurology position. Dr. Thomovsky earned her DVM from Iowa State University School of Veterinary Medicine. She completed her master’s degree and residency program in small animal neurology and neurosurgery at Purdue University. Dr. Thomovsky is a certified canine rehabilitation practitioner and board certified by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (Neurology). She is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Washington State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital. One (1) Continuing Education (CE) credit is offered for this seminar.

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The Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences welcomes Dr. David Horohov, William Robert Mills Chair in Equine Immunology at the Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center at the University of Kentucky, for a special seminar titled, “Pro-Inflammatory Gene Expression in Thoroughbred Racehorses as a Marker for Exercise Conditioning.” Dr. Horohov’s research program focuses on the identification and characterization of equine cytokines and their role in protective and pathologic immune responses. His research group has cloned, sequenced and expressed a number of cytokine genes from the horse and developed assays for their detection. These assays have been used to better characterize the protective immune responses of horses to bacterial, viral and parasitic infections, as well as the pathologic response in autoimmune and allergic diseases.

Dr. Horohov is particularly interested on the effect of age on immune responses in the horse. Current research focuses on the developing immune response of foals and how it relates to their susceptibility to infection. His research program is also interested in the effect of advanced age on the immune response of older horses. One (1) Continuing Education (CE) Credit is offered for this seminar.

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