Dogs and Spinal Cord Injury - Another Role for Man's Best
Friend
Dr. Natasha Olby, VetMB, PhD, DACVIM (Neurology) Professor
of Neurology and Neurosurgery at North Carolina State University College of
Veterinary Medicine (NCSU CVM), studied at Cambridge University for her
veterinary and research doctoral studies. She says it is at Cambridge where she
first learned about the One Health application of animal models in biomedical
research. After completing a postdoctoral study at Cambridge, she completed her
residency in neurology/neurosurgery in North Carolina. As a board certified
neurologist in the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, Dr. Olby
joined the faculty at NCSU CVM where she has been conducting clinical work and
research in spinal cord injury (SCI).
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| Dr. Natasha Olby discusses her work using dogs as models for spinal cord injury. |
Dr. Olby began our session, “Benefits of Comparative
Medicine: Regenerative Medicine?” with a holistic look at canine SCI research.
Dr. Olby explored the ethical dilemmas and solutions of SCI research and
explained that quantifying SCI recovery in dogs with naturally occurring spinal
cord diseases is crucial in creating translatable data to improve human SCI
treatments. She explained that adequate SCI models and outcome measures are
imperative to improving SCI recovery. Dr. Olby explained that dogs are an appropriate
model for human SCI because SCI is common and naturally occurring in dogs, it
is comparable to human SCI, dogs are relatively large and uniform, clinical
research avoids using laboratory animals and, as she showed during the
presentation, the results are quantifiable.
Dr. Olby has advanced SCI treatments as she has created
solutions for several hurdles in the field of SCI recovery. The gait scoring
system she created for quantifying SCI recovery in dogs allows for advancements
in recovery treatments as the field encompasses a variety of injuries, each
with differing degrees of severity which each have specific goals and
treatments. Since the severity of an injury will dictate the type of treatment
an animal receives, Dr. Olby has been able to better identify successful
treatments in SCI patients.
Dr. Olby continues to contribute to SCI
treatment and recovery in her Canine Spinal Cord Injury Program. Through this
clinical research program, Dr. Olby is able to test different treatments in
specifically-defined groups of SCI patients and definitively report their
outcomes. Her contributions to the advancement of SCI recovery in dogs is
applicable to acute and chronic SCI patients and translates to human SCI
suffers.
The Dalfampridine Story - The Making of a Medicine
Dr. Andrew Blight, PhD is the Chief Scientific Officer at
Acorda Therapeutics and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of
Neurotrauma. He began his session by outlining his unique path in One Health.
Dr. Blight first became interested in SCI while studying the miniature potentials
in frog spinal cord synapses. From there, he completed a postdoctoral study in
Germany and subsequently became a Research Assistant Professor in the
Department of Neurosurgery at New York University Medical Center. While there,
Dr. Blight brought an interest in chronic SCI when he joined a research group
studying acute SCI. From there, Dr. Blight became an Associate Professor of
Anatomy at Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine and then a Professor
and Director of the Research Laboratory in the Division of Neurosurgery at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Blight continued to study the
pathophysiology and treatment of SCI, which brought him to Acorda Therapeutics
as head of research and development.
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| Dr. Andrew Blight describes the complex pathway from therapeutic concept to pharmaceutic approval and use. |
Dr. Blight explained that while one would expect a linear
transition from understanding of a dysfunction to conceptual solution, then
animal studies, clinical studies, approval and use, this linearity is actually
much more complex in drug development. He found this to be true while working
on 4-aminopyridine; a drug therapy initially intended to treat SCI but
ultimately approved for treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). This drug is
called dalfampridine in the United States and while its exact molecular
mechanism is not understood, it has been shown to block unprotected potassium
channels affected by multiple sclerosis demyelination and is effective at very
low doses.
Dr. Blight explained the long path this drug has
taken in its journey to a Food & Drug Administration-approved drug. In the
past, it has been used as an analeptic in anesthesia. It has also been used to
treat botulism, myasthenia, Eaton-Lambert syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, MS,
and SCI. In Dr. Blight’s experience, there are many ups and downs in the
development of a drug as clinical testing can have promising results, but these
results can be hard to quantify. In Dr. Blight’s experience, the timed walk
responder was found to be the most reliable measurement of treatment outcomes.
Using an appropriate evaluation to measure the effect of dalfampridine also
allowed them to elucidate the optimal dosage for dalfampridine in the treatment
of MS. Thus, Dr. Blight provided an insider’s peek into the complex process of
therapeutic drug development.
Post authored by Josephine Drayton, NCSU MS Candidate in Animal Science & Nutrition
Up Next (17 April):
Going
to the dogs … for a new model organism of non-Hodgkin lymphoma
Steven Suter,
VMD, MS, PhD, DACVIM, Assistant Professor, Oncology at NCSU CVM
Kristy Richards, MD,
PhD, Assistant Professor Department of Genetics at UNC
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