This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The moment Kate Heath saw her 12-year-old pug, Ivy, sitting silently and staring at a wall, she knew something was wrong. Ivy's condition progressed.
She began experiencing vision changes and hearing loss, stopped sleeping through the night, started wandering into unusual corners of the apartment and often appeared lost. Heath found herself constantly watching Ivy to make sure she didn't get hurt. There was little her veterinarian could do for the once-affectionate rescue pug beyond managing her symptoms of dementia.
Now, USF Health researchers are trying to offer new hope for dog owners facing similar circumstances. Aurelie Joly, a research associate in the Morsani College of Medicine Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, is working to advance a gene therapy to treat canine cognitive decline, a condition similar in many ways to Alzheimer's disease in humans. Existing treatments for dogs primarily address symptoms such as anxiety and behavioral changes rather than the underlying disease.
Joly says that studying cognitive decline in dogs could help advance therapies for humans because dogs develop the condition naturally as they get older, potentially providing important insights for future Alzheimer's research. "They actually are a better model for the human disease because they get it spontaneously while they age," Joly said. The project is being advanced through Blue Zone Therapeutics, a company Joly co-founded with colleagues Kevin Nash, Ph.D., Christian Brechot, M.D., Ph.D., and Marselina Levis-Rabi, to help move the technology from the laboratory toward real-world veterinary applications.
While the therapy has shown promise in previous animal studies, moving it to canine studies will require significantly larger amounts of the treatment and new ways to measure its effectiveness in dogs. The newly awarded funds will help Joly address those challenges as she works to move the technology toward future veterinary studies and bring it to market. Joly is exploring a gene therapy that uses a modified, non-disease-causing virus as a delivery vehicle to carry genetic instructions into brain cells.
Rather than relying on repeated doses of medication, the approach allows those cells to produce a protective protein that helps shield brain cells from damage, Joly says. "It's like a mini factory inside the body that continuously produces a beneficial protein after a single treatment," Joly said. "The protein reduces oxidative stress, protects cells from damage and functions almost like a sunscreen for your cells." Oxidative stress is a form of cellular damage that accumulates with aging and has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases.
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