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2 Days Left

In just two days – midnight, October 12 – the Stuart’s Fund special T-Shirt campaign ends. Until then, you still have the opportunity to order a limited edition T or hoodie. You can also make a donation if shirts aren’t your style.

Why is this important? Because too many dogs die from hemangiosarcoma. An especially virulent cancer that impacts too many lives. There is no test, no effective treatment and no cure.

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As of today, 57 shirts have been sold with a total donation of more than $800 toward Stuart’s Fund.

Don’t let Stuart’s death be for naught. You can help save a life. For future generations of dog lovers. And for human cancer research as well.

Thank you for your help!

 

Can’t Wait? How to Help Now

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Things are just about ready with the online donation mechanism.

Until it’s ready to launch – and if you can’t wait to assist research efforts to help say “No!” to hemangiosarcoma – snail mail gifts are always appropriate.

Make your gift – of any amount, all gifts are needed and appreciated – to:

Virginia Tech Foundation (with Stuart’s Fund in the memo line of your check)

and mail to:

Courtney Sibiga or Nena Bauman, Office of Development

Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine

205 Duck Pond Drive

Blacksburg, Virginia,  24061

U.S.A.

The Countdown Continues

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We’re ironing out the details of Stuart’s Fund so that you can learn more about Hemangiosarcoma (HSA).

Until this site is entirely up and running, and fundraising mechanisms have been put in place, here’s an intro.

From Dr. Nick Dervisis, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Oncology) Medical Oncology/Assistant Professor at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine:

Hemangiosarcoma is an aggressive and common cancer in dogs. While cutaneous masses are often treatable by tumor excision, visceral and cardiac tumors are almost always incurable. Treatment options for this disease have been limited with virtually no significant advances in the last 30 years, mostly due to our poor understanding of the disease biology. While we have thought that HSA originates from neoplastic endothelial cells, accumulating data now suggest a bone marrow progenitor as the cell of origin for this disease. 

 Dr. Erin Fagan, our Medical Oncology Resident is working on exploring a cell signalling pathway in HSA. The Jak/STAT signaling pathway functions to regulate cell growth and proliferation in many normal bone marrow cells. Dysregulation of the Jak/STAT pathway has implications in human malignancies, including leukemias, lymphomas, and sarcomas. To date, there is very little research investigating presence and activity of this pathway in canine HSA. The aim of Dr. Fagan’s study is to identify and characterize the activity of this pathway in hemangiosarcoma. We use archived tumor tissues, from dogs diagnosed with the disease, and interrogate the signaling pathway’s activation status using immunohistochemistry.

Stuart’s Fund helps support this study and more.

Thank you for your interest.

Stay tuned as the countdown continues.