2016 CVM News: Van de Walle team develops model to test effectiveness of drugs in treating feline eye infections

Abstract

The news item from the Cornell Chronicle is about: It’s a problem veterinarians see all the time, but there are few treatments. Feline herpes virus 1 (FHV-1) is a frequent cause of eye infections in cats, but the drugs available to treat these infections must be applied multiple times a day and there is scant scientific evidence to support their use. Now scientists at the Baker Institute for Animal Health at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine have developed a model system that can be used to test drugs for treating these eye infections, and early results have pointed to a new drug for treating FHV-1 that will soon head to clinical trials. The work is reported in the Journal of General Virology in June.