To be honest, most cancer therapies fail and don’t work as well as we need them to. Here’s why: With surgery, chemotherapy, and even with immunotherapies, aggressive cancers find ways to adapt and survive. These tumors mutate, hide from the immune system, and can even deactivate cancer-attacking killer T-cells. But it doesn’t have to be that way. New research is revealing how to outsmart cancer, even when it’s already spread. And the key is this:
Use a multi-pronged strategy. Cancer doesn’t rely on just one trick. It uses multiple escape routes—mutations, inflammation, immune suppression, and more. So a truly effective treatment must block all those routes at once. Professor Steve Dow of Colorado State University recently put it like this: “The idea that a single drug is going to do everything is probably not going to happen.” |
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(By the way, Prof Dow is behind the approach of combining repurposed drugs, including propranolol, losartan, and toceranib, to counter cancer’s ability suppress the immune system) Combination therapy is considered essential because a single drug or monotherapy is unlikely to provide comprehensive anti-cancer effects. The challenge is creating a combination therapy with high efficacy but minimal toxicity and side-effects. This week, we’re excited to bring you two important webinars on new approaches to treating cancer in dogs. One looks at combining multiple immune-modulating treatments. The other describes a new test that opens up the possibility of adding targeted therapy drugs to the combination approach. |
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Could This Combo Therapy Help Dogs Beat Osteosarcoma? Webinar Date: Friday, July 18, 2025
Time: noon PT | 3pm ET
Speaker: Dr. Brian Flesner A new clinical trial is exploring an innovative treatment approach that combines: - Autologous cancer vaccine – made from your dog’s own tumor to teach their immune system what to attack
- Immune checkpoint inhibitor – a drug that removes the brakes from T cells, helping them destroy cancer more effectively
Each shows promise on its own, but together, they could give the dog's immune system a better chance of fighting aggressive cancer like osteosarcoma. Join the webinar and learn more. |
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What Every Pet Parent Should Know About a New Cancer Test Webinar Date: July 16, 2025
Time: 10 am PT, 1pm ET
Speaker: Dr. Guannan Wang, CEO of VetOmics In human medicine, Comprehensive Genomic Profiling (CGP) has been changing how cancer is treated by matching tumors to targeted therapy drugs, avoiding ineffective treatments and side effects, and identifying resistance mutations as cancer evolves Now, CGP is starting to help dogs like Lucy, a golden retriever with metastatic melanoma, who has been stable for over 5 months with the help of targeted therapy drug selected using genomic testing. In this Webinar, Dr. Wang - co-founder of VetOmics - will introduce you to CGP for canine cancer: what it is, how it works and how it's different from other tests in helping find the best treatments. If you haven't signed up yet, this is a session you don't want to miss. |
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Thank you for being part of this community!! Your donations make it possible to support research and our educational program. Please consider becoming a monthly donor so that we can continue to advance research to help build a better future for dogs with cancer. |
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With heartfelt gratitude, Mari Mari Maeda PhD Founder Canine Cancer Alliance |
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P.S.
Please share this newsletter with your family and friends who might be interested! |
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PO Box 385
Bellevue, WA 98009, USA |
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