Detecting Colon Cancer without Colonoscopy

Ahh..I bet when you read THAT title you were wondering what this has to do with veterinary medicine. This is just one example of how veterinary research benefits us humans. It goes both ways of course, which is why it's vital for us to share information. There are many teams of researchers out there that include veterinarians, physicians and PhD's.   And for those interested in pursuing a non-practice veterinary career, this is definitely a good route to choose. As the article says, they need more vets in this area!




BY CYNTHIA BILLHARTZ GREGORIAN • cbillhartz@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8114
 | Posted: Wednesday, March 9, 2011 2:00 pm 

Several years from now, researchers at the University of Missouri say, fewer people may have to endure the discomfort and indignity of a colonoscopy.

Instead, doctors and laboratory technicians will study feces.

And we'll have a couple of veterinarians to thank for it.

Craig L. Franklin, associate professor of veterinary pathobiology in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine in Columbia, and a team of colon cancer researchers, have found biomarkers in mouse feces that predict the same types of colon cancer associated with some inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

The team's original mission in 2008 was to test cancer treatments on mice. Franklin's job was to give a bacterium to the rodents that would induce colon cancer in them.

At the same time, he was participating in a parallel project with Dr. Matt Myles, assistant professor of veterinary pathobiology, and Linsey Krafve, an undergraduate student, that was looking for biomarkers for their inflammatory-bowel-disease mouse model.

"But then we got this idea that maybe we could back up and find markers in their feces which would tell us which ones would ultimately get colon cancer," Franklin said.

Three weeks after giving bacteria to the mice, the team was able to identify several markers that predicted which ones would get colon cancer and which wouldn't.

"The novel thing was most people don't think of looking at feces because bacteria and other things can rapidly degrade RNA," Franklin said. "But we said we'll try anyway. And it worked fabulously."

Technology has improved immensely in recent years, allowing them to better preserve the RNA, which encodes genetic information. Some viruses use RNA instead of DNA as their genetic material.

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