Stolen Heartbeats Funding Newfoundland SAS Studies

Fifty-one years with SAS! That's how long it has been known that SAS affects our Newfoundlands. The Newfoundland Health Challenge wants to confront this head-on by raising funds to attract additional new research to finally put this disease in its place.

2023 NEW STUDY! Funded jointly by Morris Animal Foundation and the Newfoundland Club of America Charitable Trust, the study hopes to shed light on the genetics underlying subvalvular aortic stenosis (SAS) in Newfoundland dogs.

Specifically, the research will employ advanced tools to discover genetic determinants of the disease in the breed. If successful, findings could be used to genetically screen dogs for this disease and inform breeding decisions.

“SAS is a devastating and puzzling disease—devastating for the dogs and their families and puzzling for the geneticists,” says principal investigator Vilma Yuzbasiyan-Gurkan, PhD, a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics and small animal clinical sciences at Michigan State University. “We hope our cutting-edge genetics and genomics approaches will provide some clear and useful answers and reveal the genetic basis of this disorder.”

2021 Study: FUNDED! Researchers are conducting a clinical trial to investigate whether the drug rapamycin can reduce the life-threatening heart remodeling associated with SAS. The team hopes this novel therapy may reduce disease severity and improve outcomes and quality of life for dogs with this devastating disease.

Study ID: D22CA-040

Start Date: 11/01/2021

Grant amount awarded: $62,647 (50% funded by the NCA Charitable Trust)

Grant recipient: University of California, Davis