The Royal Veterinary College recently launched a dedicated Oncobiome Bank to collect and store microbiome samples from dogs and cats diagnosed with cancer.

Funded by the RVC Animal Care Trust, the Oncobiome Bank is a collection of clinical samples from veterinary oncology patients including faecal microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. It will help researchers investigate the links between the intestinal microbiome, disease development, treatment responses and long-term cancer outcomes in pets, and helping improve their cancer care.

The intestinal microbiome, which is the community of bacteria and other microbes living in the gut, is becoming an increasingly important focus in human cancer research. Studies have shown that gut health can affect immune function, cancer risk, response to treatment and overall patient outcomes. While these relationships are well studied in people, far less is currently understood in dogs and cats, highlighting the need for dedicated veterinary research in this area.

The RVC’s Oncobiome Bank will store residual faecal, plasma and serum samples, collected from canine and feline cancer patients at the time of diagnosis by the RVC’s Oncology team, which handles more than 1,500 small animal cases every year.

These samples will support future DNA, RNA and metabolomic research projects, helping researchers investigate how cancer and cancer treatments may affect the gut microbiome, and whether changes in gut health could influence treatment response and recovery.

The bank will also support research into emerging approaches to oncology including dietary interventions, probiotics and faecal microbiota transplantation. Many cancers in dogs and cats share biological similarities to those seen in humans meaning these findings could inform our wider understanding of cancer and treatment responses in human medicine.

Dr Andy Yale, Lecturer in Veterinary Oncology at the RVC, said:

“I’m incredibly excited to be launching the RVC Oncobiome Bank, as the role of the microbiome in veterinary oncology is still in its infancy and represents a largely unexplored frontier. While human medicine is beginning to uncover how profoundly the microbiome can influence cancer development, treatment response and outcomes, this area remains very novel in our field.

“By establishing this resource, we aim to enable future larger-scale, clinically meaningful studies that would otherwise take years to develop and ultimately generate insights that can be translated into better care for our patients. I am very grateful to the RVC Animal Care Trust for funding this initiative.”

To the RVC’s knowledge, the Oncobiome Bank is the first dedicated veterinary oncobiome bank in the UK and Europe, providing a new platform for future comparative cancer research. It also adds to the RVC’s existing Biobanks: the Companion Animal Brain Bank (CABB) set up 2019; RVC’s Canine Pericardial Effusion Biobank (established in 2022); the RVC’s Cancer Biobank; and the SUB (subcutaneous ureteral bypass) biobank.