The traditional vaccine development pathway was long and expensive for human vaccines: 20 years and $2.5 billion. However, the last 20 years has seen an ever-increasing speed in the vaccine development pathway due in part to advances in platform technologies, manufacturing, controlled human infection models, regulatory authorities and pandemic preparedness. This lecture will overview the advances and provide some thoughts on where we will go in the future.
Therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) is increasingly described as a treatment for select immune mediated conditions in human and veterinary medicine given its ability to remove pathologic immune components such as antibody. In TPE patient plasma is separated from the other blood components, discarded, and replaced with a replacement solution. In human medicine, immunologic disorders in which TPE is accepted as first- or second-line therapy, in combination with immunosuppression, include myasthenia gravis, and severe auto-immune hemolytic anemia, respectively. This lecture will provide a background to the process of TPE, briefly review the American Society for Apheresis guidelines, summarise the veterinary literature on the use of TPE for immunologic disorders, and include case examples.
This seminar will focus on the emerging concept of innate immune memory (or trained immunity) in mice, humans, and domestic animals. We will also discuss induction of trained immunity in foals in response to infection with Rhodococcus equi, and limitations of our current model.
This talk will review changes in the immune phenotype in periparturient dairy cattle with a particular focus on regulation of inflammatory response and the interplay with metabolism and nutrition.
Overcoming tumor relapses and resistance to conventional treatments remains a major challenge in canine and human oncology. Targeting tumors through a combinatorial approach that integrates standard therapies with cancer vaccines offers a promising path forward. One such target is chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan 4 (CSPG4), a tumor-associated antigen highly expressed in malignant melanoma (MM) and osteosarcoma (OSA) but minimally present in normal tissues. A novel human-dog hybrid CSPG4 DNA vaccine (HuDo-CSPG4; MeraVax) has been developed to enhance immune recognition. Preclinical and clinical studies have shown that HuDo-CSPG4 vaccination is safe, immunogenic, and extends survival in dogs with CSPG4+ MM and OSA. The induced immune response, encompassing both cellular and antibody-mediated mechanisms, correlates with improved patient outcomes. These findings underscore CSPG4’s potential as a therapeutic target in canine cancer and support the use of HuDo-CSPG4 vaccination as a powerful tool to break immune tolerance and enhance treatment efficacy in MM and OSA. Moreover, this approach could pave the way for the development of similar CSPG4-targeted immunotherapies in human oncology.
In this talk we will discuss novel approaches to treatment of FIP, including in vitro drug screening, pharmacokinetic studies, and preliminary results of clinical trials in cats with naturally occurring FIP.
This seminar will provide a historical perspective of passive immunization of foals to prevent R. equi pneumonia, discuss some recent studies, and finish with discussing the concept of using mRNA-encoded monoclonal antibodies for passive immunization.
Approximately ½ of the dogs from the United States that undergo a renal biopsy for the clinical indication of proteinuria have evidence of immune complex deposition in their glomeruli. Although the incidence of immune complex mediated glomerulonephritis (ICGN) is lower in cats, it can have significant clinical manifestations. This talk will focus on techniques routinely used by the International Veterinary Renal Pathology Service to diagnose ICGN and it will compare and contrast with what is known about and routinely performed for human patients with proteinuria. Specific attention will be given to various diagnostic tests (used in humans) that would be of interest for development and optimization in small animals.
Immune-mediated brain disease, often referred to by the umbrella term ‘meningoencephalomyelitis of unknown origin [MUO]’, is common in dogs but its etiology remains unclear. MUO bears some similarity with multiple sclerosis in people, which in turn has been modelled by the artificially induced disease ‘experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis [EAE]’ in rats and mice. During the early 2010s, work in mice established that the severity of EAE could be altered depending on the microbial components of the gastrointestinal tract. Specific bacterial species have since been associated with adjustments in balance between pro- and anti- inflammatory activity in the immune system. In a case-control study we found that gastrointestinal Prevotella spp were reduced in abundance in dogs that had MUO, suggesting that manipulation of the gut microbiome might be a means to ameliorate disease severity. We are now carrying out a second study to investigate this hypothesis.
The presentation will review the clinical manifestation of common large animal immunologic disorders. The information will prompt the clinician to consider underlying immunologic conditions in their lists of differential diagnoses, and describe how to select diagnostics. The review may be of interest to residents pursuing clinical training and board certification.
Bovine respiratory disease is a prevalent cause of sickness and death in cattle. Historically, much effort has focused on development of vaccines to prevent infection by viral and bacterial agents that contribute to respiratory disease. However, despite decades of vaccine research, this disease complex continues to exert a major negative impact on bovine health. Recent research investigating whole blood transcriptomes of cattle at high risk for respiratory disease suggests that inflammation-limiting responses may be key to disease resistance in some cattle. Preliminary results indicating a role for specific pro-resolving mediators in bovine respiratory disease resistance will be reviewed.
This talk will discuss the molecular mechanisms behind tryptophan metabolism and its impact on the intestinal immune response. Studies pertaining to tryptophan and its metabolites in the pathogenesis of dogs and cats with gastrointestinal disease will also be presented. Finally, the future potential of tryptophan as a therapeutic target in dogs and cats with gastrointestinal disease will be explored.