November 18, 2013

One Medicine – learning from animals as patients

The Wellcome Trust played host to a scientific meeting on one of the big new trends in science – learning from animals as patients. The approach is called ‘Comparative medicine’ or ‘One Medicine’ and is now being pioneered at universities throughout the UK and supported by medical research funders.

The SMC invited four of the leading pioneers in this area to brief journalists the day before their conference about how learning from animals as patients is now being applied to the big challenges of our time including ageing cancer and heart disease.

This briefing comes one year after the breakthrough that saw a crippled Jasper the dachshund walk again, thanks to pioneering stem cell work by vets at Cambridge university. There are several ‘Jaspers’ in the cohort but they are all someone’s valued pet.

Speakers:

Dr Nicolas Granger, Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Neurology, School of Veterinary Sciences, University of Bristol

Professor Mike Davies, Associate Professor in Small Animal Clinical Practice, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Nottingham

Dr Mandy Peffers,  Wellcome Integrated Veterinary Research Fellow, Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, The University of Liverpool,

Mrs Jane Betts, Chief Executive, Comparative Clinical Science Foundation