Page 2 - Clinical Connections - Autumn 2019

RVC RESEARCH STUDY VETERINARY SERVICES and implementing brain banking at the
RVC, the team hopes to open new avenues of tissue archiving across neurology and other disciplines.
Neurological diseases such as brain tumours and epilepsy affect many of the patients presenting to veterinary surgeons. Such diseases also affect the families and communities of our clients and remain
a key area of unmet need in veterinary
and human care. Over the last 30 years, significant advances in neurological disease research have come from examining human and animal brain tissue. However, there is an acknowledged paucity of brain tissue available to researchers globally. In human
medicine this resource gap is now being successfully addressed by the creation of the UK Brain Banks Network, which ensures human brain tissue is readily accessible to researchers from any related discipline.
The RVC uses a standardised methodology that has been adapted from the Medical Research Council’s UK Brain Bank Network to ensure systematic sample collection, processing, storage and cataloguing of brain tissue.
In relation to the CABB facilitating research into veterinary and human diseases, Dr Crawford said: “High quality research into neurological diseases has long been hampered by the limited availability of
well characterised brain tissue. A CABB increases the availability of such tissues to researchers from any discipline. Use of a standardised protocol, adapted from human brain banks, means that specific regions
of the brain from companion animals and humans can be directly compared at the gross and cellular level, facilitating high quality translational research.
“Availability of companion animal brain tissue facilitates detailed investigation
of the pathophysiology of neurological diseases at the cellular and molecular level e.g. characterisation of disrupted cellular pathways, identification of biomarkers
for disease diagnosis and understanding
the microenvironment of brain tumours. This greater disease understanding has the potential to improve diagnosis and drive the development of new treatments for human and veterinary patients.”
The Animal Care Trust kindly awarded a grant of £15,873 last year to enable the establishment of the CABB.That funding enabled the purchase of an Eppendorf CryoCube F740 Freezer with a factory setting of -80°C.
The goal of the team is to store a minimum of 50 brains over a three-year period, so creating a freely and easily accessible resource to researchers across the UK.
For small animal referrals, please call:
01707 666399
Email:
qmhreception@rvc.ac.uk
“High quality research into neurological diseases has long
been hampered by the limited availability
of well characterised brain tissue”
Dr Abbe Crawford
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Welcome to our autumn edition of Clinical Connections.This issue is jam-packed with a range of examples of how our basic and clinical research at the RVC is being effectively translated into exciting innovations within the diagnostic and therapeutic activities in our clinical centres.
Take a look at Professor Lucy Davison’s
account of the research journey that has been
occurring at the RVC since Lucy first arrived
as PhD student to look at genetic markers for
canine diabetes back in 2001.
In the intervening period there have been
many exciting developments including the
pioneering of continuous glucose monitoring
for dogs and cats, the recognition of the
genetic basis for the role of the immune system in canine diabetes mellitus, the extraordinary prevalence of hypersomatotrophism as a “co-morbidity” in feline diabetes mellitus, and finally the whole issue around managing and prioritising diabetic animal’s owners’ quality of life.
On a different but equally exciting note, this issue also outlines our Companion Animal Brain Bank initiative. I think you’ll be really impressed with what we are trying to do. As Abbe mentions, this is likely to have a really significant impact on the depth of
our understanding in veterinary neurology and is likely to have significant translational potential.
While our Brain Bank initiative is at the start of its life, a similar long-term initiative is celebrating recruiting its 500th case! Led by Professor Adrian Boswood and ably supported by Nicola Lotter,
the data generated by our Mitral Valve Clinic has underpinned numerous advances in our understanding of the most common cardiac problem encountered in small animal practice.
There are also a series of articles focusing
on our transdisciplinary approaches to managing critical care patients. I never cease to be impressed by the exceptional talents of our specialists and how much leverage there
is to patient care when they are working in multidisciplinary teams. I am also fascinated to read that donkeys are very definitely not small horses!
Talking about different approaches for different species, spend a few minutes reading about Jack MacHale’s journey. Jack is an
RVC alumnus who has spent his graduate years working in Birmingham and Brisbane (now there is a contrast!) until we were lucky enough to attract him back to the RVC as our first ever resident in exotic medicine, based in our incredibly busy full-time exotics service based in the Beaumont Sainsbury Animal Hospital.
From our Companion Animal Brain Bank initiative through management of a dog with a complex pyothorax and a donkey with an intra-abdominal abscess case to castrating a skunk, I hope everyone will find something of interest in this edition of Clinical Connections.
Professor David Church, Deputy Principal and Acting Vice Principal (Clinical Affairs)
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