They may be our best friends but attracting funding for research into the life-threatening diseases of dogs, and cats, is difficult.
So School of Veterinary Science and Animal Production reader Dr Rick Atwell is rather pleased with recent "outside" funding of more than $200,000 towards cardiology research in companion animals.
"Veterinary science is uniquely difficult because unless a human model of a disease exists then it is very hard to get traditional funding for specific diseases of dogs and cats," Dr Atwell said.
"Support generally goes towards ?economic' animals or, understandably, towards human medical research."
The funds, negotiated over a two year period, are being made available by a venture capital company, major pharmaceutical companies and professional bodies including veterinary associations.
Dr Atwell said $138,000 would go towards a major trial involving drug delivery techniques but it was too early to release the names of the companies involved due to confidentiality agreements.
Other projects to benefit included research into cat heartworm, combating the increase in lethal tick paralysis in dogs, researching pancreatitis, part-time cardiologist services for the Veterinary Teaching Hospital and teaching delivery.
Dr Atwell said heartworm in cats was among the latest trends being seen by veterinarians despite it being relatively uncommon in the past.
"We will be developing a footprint technique in the lung and this will involve looking back at 20 years' of lung samples to see if cat heartworm has been here, but possibly underdiagnosed, a long time," he said.
"We will carry out surveys using ultrasound on the heart and use a new antibody test which detects a unique marker in the blood of non-symptomatic animals.
"We are also developing a technique for heartworm surgery for cats where we pass a special sterile catheter-like brush down into the heart and actually entangle the worms and pull them out."
Dr Atwell said funding from Merial Australia, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, had provided funding for a part-time resident in cardiology, Stephen Platt, a University of Queensland graduate, along with an interactive CD ROM teaching program for fourth and fifth year Veterinary Science students.
Other teaching delivery programs included assessing a French feedback system using an audience participation method which allowed lecturers to immediately assess students' understanding of a topic.
Dr Atwell said the system, which questioned participants en masse and then recorded their individual responses as they pushed buttons for yes or no, had been trialled throughout Queensland with 88 percent of 120 veterinarians rating it as very good or excellent teaching modality.
Funding has also been provided for clinical teaching cases using the University's Central Replay System.
"For example we can have a case come in today, take a video recording of the clinical signs, add the results of ultrasound and radiology, take it straight to the class the next day and then eventually onto the Web for students to download," Dr Atwell said.
"This provides instantaneous material from the time the client walks in the front door of our teaching hospital."
Dr Atwell also is concerned that the productivity of such funding is undervalued in the current system which values traditional funding more highly.
"The future of clinical research will increasingly depend on such ?outside of the system' sources and should therefore be more appreciated in academic productivity assessment," he said.
For information contact Dr Rick Atwell at the School of Veterinary Science and Animal Production (telephone 3365 2551).
