Stuart Helfand DVM, DACVIM

Affiliate Associate Professor, Radiation Medicine

Dr. Stuart Helfand's research is dedicated to improving the health of animals with cancer while at the same time capitalizing on the unique opportunities presented by spontaneous tumors in pet animals as models for comparable cancers in humans. He is Professor of Oncology in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University.

His laboratory has a long standing interest in cancer immunotherapy and its impact on modulation of angiogenesis. He has been particularly interested in development of novel approaches to target the immunostimulatory and anti-angiogenic cytokine, interleukin-12, to vasculature within the tumor microenvironment. This work has evolved to include other approaches to suppress endothelial cell proliferation. The current focus is on tyrosine kinase signaling pathways in malignant endothelial cells (i.e., canine hemangiosarcoma) in an effort to elucidate derangements and identify candidate aberrant kinases amenable to blockade by tyrosine kinase inhibitors. He is pursuing the potential to combine these various modalities with radiotherapy in tumor bearing animals. Other areas of interest include development of novel therapeutics for canine osteosarcoma and squamous cell carcinoma.