Inside the Purdue Lab Where Dog Cancer Research Is Rewriting Human Oncology Too

RESEARCH & INNOVATION

The Werling Comparative Oncology Research Center is proving that treating a sick Great Dane and curing a person are not two different missions.

Comparative oncology has been a buzzword in veterinary circles for a while, but at Purdue's College of Veterinary Medicine it is a fully built-out research engine with its own building, its own patients, and a genuine claim to shaping how oncologists treat both dogs and humans. The Evan and Sue Ann Werling Comparative Oncology Research Center opened a year ago, but the program behind it traces back to 1979, and the team there is not shy about what they are chasing: better outcomes for pets, and real translational insight for human cancer patients.

Deborah Knapp, distinguished professor of comparative oncology and the Dolores L. McCall Professor of Veterinary Medicine, leads much of that work as associate director of clinical comparative oncology at the Purdue Institute for Cancer Research. Her framing of the mission is simple and, frankly, a little inspiring for anyone who went into this field wanting their work to matter beyond one exam room at a time.

It's a rare case of win-win-win, Knapp said of comparative oncology. The pet benefits, the next 100 animals benefit, and that knowledge also helps humans with cancer.

Why Dogs, Specifically

The center's research priorities are not random. The team focuses on cancers that progress similarly in dogs and humans, including bladder cancer, lymphoma, and osteosarcoma, a bone cancer that is devastating but rare in people and comparatively common in large-breed dogs like Great Danes and Rottweilers. Because dog cancer tends to progress more like human cancer than cancer in lab rodents does, a well-designed canine study can produce insight that a rodent model simply cannot.

Knapp's team has leaned into breed predisposition as a research shortcut of sorts. Scottish terriers, for instance, develop bladder cancer at up to 20 times the rate of other breeds, which gave her team a concentrated population to study for early detection methods relevant to a similar form of the disease in humans.

Matching the Right Drug to the Right Patient

Michael Childress, professor of comparative oncology and a researcher in the Tyler Trent Pediatric Cancer Research Center, is focused on a problem that will sound familiar to anyone who has watched a patient not respond to a first-line treatment: figuring out fast which drug will actually work for which patient. His team is pulling in tools you would not expect in a veterinary oncology lab, including Doppler radar technology and AI, to understand why some patients respond to a given drug and others do not.

That kind of rapid-match approach could shorten the trial-and-error period that currently costs both canine and human patients precious time and quality of life.

A Center Built by a Grateful Family

The Werling Center's origin story is the kind of thing that makes veterinary medicine feel like the community-driven field it is supposed to be. It grew out of the relationship between Purdue's oncology team and Evan and Sue Ann Werling, whose dog Brandi was treated for bladder cancer and participated in two of the center's clinical trials. That experience turned into a friendship, and eventually into the center itself. A bronze statue of Brandi now greets every family that walks through the doors.

Inside, the connections keep going. Marejka Shaevitz, a clinical assistant professor of oncology who helps coordinate research projects and track patients, trained at Purdue and is a cancer survivor herself, a detail that adds a layer of lived understanding to the work happening there every day.

It is a special privilege to care for animals with cancer because you form a bond not only with the animals but with their family, Knapp said. It's such a scary, vulnerable time.

Part of a Bigger Push

The Werling Center's work sits inside Purdue's broader One Health initiative, which is built around the idea that human, animal, and plant health are deeply connected and that solving problems at that intersection delivers benefits nobody could get by working in a silo. For veterinary professionals watching where the field is headed, comparative oncology programs like this one are a clear signal: the line between veterinary research and human medicine keeps getting thinner, and vets are increasingly the ones doing the work that proves it.

Source: Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine, reporting by Brittany Steff.