Natural Health Products to Manage Cancers of Dogs

More than half of Canadian households have companion animals such as dog or cat. However, cancer has become the leading cause of death in dogs. Currently, available treatments have limitations and compromise the quality of life of dogs. Adored Beast Apothecary wishes to develop unique natural health products to prevent and treat cancers of dogs. The objective of the proposed research project is to develop optimized processes to generate safe and efficacious anti-cancer natural products using a sustainably grown phytoplankton strain. The specific objectives of the project are to identify the natural compounds present in the new product, assess whether the products have antioxidant activity to prevent cancer as well as to treat cancer. The intern (a postdoctoral fellow) will examine both cancer preventive and treatment properties of the new natural health products using cultured mammalian cells. The expected result will become useful for the Adored Beast Apothecary to file a patent application, plan for experiments using animals, and progress with business development plan and commercialization.

Faculty Supervisor:

Vasantha Rupasinghe

Student:

Sajeev Wagle

Partner:

Adored Beast Apothecary

Discipline:

Food science

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

Dalhousie University