The Cornell Feline Health Center Research Grant Program provides vital financial support to Cornell researchers investigating issues that affect feline health. Projects currently funded by the Cornell Feline Health Center range from studies of feline GI disorders to feline cancer.

Scientific research has made feline medicine what it is today, and it’s making a healthier, happier tomorrow possible for cats around the world. If you believe in the positive power of our work to make a difference, please consider making a donation to the Cornell Feline Health Center today.

2024- 2025 Funded Research Projects:

Development of feline chimeric antigen receptor-expressing immune cells against a feline coronavirus spike protein

Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a devastating viral disease of cats that is almost routinely fatal if not treated with recently identified antiviral drugs, which work by chemically interfering with the replication of virus in infected cells of the body. Caused by mutations of a feline coronavirus that is commonly found in the GI tract of cats (usually without causing significant illness), the virus uses the cellar machinery of the host’s cells to make more copies of itself that are ultimately released from infected cells and go on the infect other cells in the body (and other cats when transmitted).

An important structural part of the virus is a region called the spike protein, which the virus uses to attach to and enter susceptible cells as the first step of cellular infection. Importantly, if the spike protein of the virus does not function normally, virus cannot enter cells to disseminate infection in the host.

While the recent development of antiviral drugs that inhibit viral replication within cells has made treating this previously untreatable disease possible, another theoretical way to treat FIP (and perhaps other viral diseases of cats and people) is to develop therapies that use antibodies directed toward the spike protein of the virus using a technology called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) therapy.

CAR involves harvesting a type of white blood cell called T cells (an integral part of the immune system that modulates the immune response against microscopic invaders like viruses and abnormal cells like cancer cells) and “programming” them to recognize proteins in either invading or cancerous cells so that they can initiate an immune response that ultimately neutralizes the invading or cancerous cells when administered to patients.

Previous Cornell Feline Health Center-funded work in Dr. Leifer’s lab resulted in the development of the first-ever feline CAR directed toward the spike protein of the FIP form of the feline coronavirus. This exciting work is the first step toward the development of a novel FIP therapy that can neutralize the spike protein of the virus, preventing it from gaining access to cells, thereby preventing infection.

This exciting and novel project will focus on optimizing the engineering of feline CAR-producing cells as the next step toward the development of feline CARs that can be used to treat not only FIP, but also other important diseases of cats such as lymphoma.

Investigator: Cynthia Leifer, Ph.D.

Understanding Carbapenem-resistant Organisms through Veterinary Epidemiology and Research in Cats (UnCOVER - Cats)

Antimicrobials (antibiotics) are used to treat a variety of bacterial infections, and they work by neutralizing (killing) bacteria in a variety of ways, depending upon the specific antimicrobial. Antimicrobials are a vital tool in the maintenance of the health of both animals and people, and assuring that they continue to be available to treat bacterial infections is crucial.

Bacteria can develop resistance against antimicrobials (i.e. they can become less susceptible to being neutralized by them) following antimicrobial treatment, exposure to other animals and humans that have been treated with them, and/or through exposure to antimicrobials that have accumulated in the environment. This resistance poses a significant threat to the health of cats and animals in general, and has been identified as among the most important public health issues facing the human medical profession by the CDC.

This project will utilize the latest in laboratory and genome sequencing techniques to characterize the prevalence and genetic signatures of intestinal bacteria that show resistance to carbapenem, a powerful antimicrobial that is considered one of the “last resort” drugs for the treatment of otherwise resistant bacterial infections (carbapenem resistant organisms, CRO), in a large population of cats presenting to the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, the world’s largest not-for -profit veterinary hospital.

It will also seek to identify medical and lifestyle characteristics of cats harboring CRO and genetic signatures of the CRO themselves in an effort to better understand factors that may predispose to the development of bacterial resistance to carbapenem in cats.

This type of infectious disease surveillance is crucial to improving our understanding of how bacterial resistance to carbapenem develops in cats, as the first step toward developing strategies to prevent carbapenem resistance in both cats and humans.

Investigator: Casey Cazer, D.V.M., Ph.D.

Improving outcomes for feline oral squamous cell carcinoma (FOSCC) – evaluation of small molecule inhibitors and generation of patient-derived xenograft models

Feline oral squamous cell carcinoma (FOSCC) is the most common malignant cancer that occurs in the oral cavity of cats, and it currently carries a poor prognosis, with a median survival time of 2-7 months after diagnosis.

This project will investigate the effects of small molecule inhibitors (drugs that alter biological function) of two novel chemical pathways that have been identified as important in the survival and proliferation of FOSCC in cultured FOSCC cells in the laboratory, as a first step toward designing improved therapies for this common and devastating feline cancer.

The investigators will also focus on the development of a mouse model of FOSCC that uses tissue implanted from actual cases of FOSCC, and will then test the most effective small molecule inhibitor identified in cultured FOSCC cells on this model. This is anticipated to be an important step toward the testing of novel small model inhibitors of FOSCC in living patients.

Investigator: Kelly Hume, D.V.M., DACVIM

Between-Host Evolution and Transmission of Feline Coronavirus

Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a systemic viral disease of cats that is caused by the mutation of certain strains of feline coronavirus (FCoV-1). Until relatively recently, FIP was an almost routinely fatal disease, but the recent development of safe and effective antiviral drugs has provided new hope for cats suffering from this dreadful disease.

While we have a better understanding of how to treat FIP once it is presumptively diagnosed, the issue of how it is transmitted among cats is controversial. The current dogma regarding transmission is that FCoV-1 resides in the GI tract, and that it is passed from one cat to another via the feces. It goes on the propose that in a small percentage of infections, FCoV-1 undergoes mutations that alter its biological behavior, leading to the development of what we know as FIP.

Preliminary data from the Whittaker lab suggests that long term FCoV-1 infections can result in shedding of the virus from the respiratory tract and the conjunctiva, the pinkish mucous membranes that surround the eye. Genetic sequencing of the FCoV-1 strains that have thus far been identified in the conjunctiva of infected cat suggests that their spike proteins, which they use to gain access to cells during infection, are in a conformation that would promote   infection. These findings are contrary to the current dogma regarding the mode of transmission of FCoV-1 among cats.

The goal of this study is to undertake a surveillance program of shelter and community-based cats to investigate the conjunctiva as a means of transmission of FCoV-1 among cats. Using cutting edge sequencing techniques on conjunctival swab samples obtained from shelter and community-based cats to compare the genetic signatures of coronaviruses found in cats with FIP to those with FCoV-1 infections that do not have FIP, this project will provide valuable information about how FCoV-1 is transmitted among cats. The genetics of these strains of FCoV-1 that are isolated will also be compared to those of previously isolated strains. Such knowledge is crucial to developing strategies to prevent FIP and to understanding the evolution of feline (and perhaps other) coronaviruses.

Investigator: Gary Whittaker, Ph.D.

The use of chemical deterrents to mitigate conflict behaviour of large felids in Nepal

Conflict with human populations poses the greatest threat to the health, welfare, and conservation of large wild feline species, and is increasing annually. Such conflict commonly involves predation on livestock and attacks on humans that prompt retaliatory killing, often using inhumane practices such as snaring, poisoning, and blunt-force trauma.

Thus far, conventional approaches to minimizing human-predator conflict have been unsuccessful, and the practices of translocating and placing problem big cats in captivity each have their own pitfalls with respect to the welfare of the cats involved.

This project will investigate the use of natural chemical signals in the form of volatile urine compounds (VUC, chemicals that impart an odor to urine) from big cats as a deterrent to wild leopards, snow leopards, and tigers in regions of Nepal and Botswana that are experiencing high rates of human-big cat conflict. 

The hypotheses being tested are that the deployment of controlled-release dispensers of VUC in testing sites will deter large felids from using routes that they normally use (i.e. will alter their travel routes) and will decrease the frequency of large felid attacks on livestock in enclosures in which they are deployed.

This study is a vital first step in investigating this potentially safe and effective means of minimizing big cat-human conflict.

Investigator: Martin Gilbert, BVMS, Ph.D.