It took Yana Zavros 16 years to get diagnosed with a disorder called Cushing’s disease.
Sixteen years of a demoralizing condition that causes muscle weakness, mood changes, and weight gain, among other symptoms, because the patient’s adrenal glands produce too much of the stress hormone cortisol.
By the time Zavros received her diagnosis, she was an accomplished researcher at the University of Arizona who focused on gastric and pancreatic cancer. Cushing’s is rare in humans, and Zavros was frustrated by how long it took to diagnose and that the only treatments available to her weren’t even specific to her disease.
Then, she remembered that she was qualified to start a research program and do something about it.
“It was a turning point in how I viewed research and what we do as scientists,” she says. “I found my purpose.”
In fall 2024, Zavros joined UGA’s new School of Medicine as Research Center Director and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Molecular Medicine. Already, she is partnering with scholars on campus to find new answers for Cushing’s while continuing her cancer research.
Zavros believes the solution for better diagnosis and treatment for Cushing’s disease in humans is first understanding how to cure the disease in dogs through an approach to research called One Health. This concept looks for health solutions beyond the human by also considering animal and environmental health. In the last five years, UGA has invested in the One Health approach as part of a broader effort to bring interdisciplinary research teams together to tackle complex 21st century challenges.
While Cushing’s in humans is rare, that’s not true for canines. About 100,000 dogs are diagnosed with the hormonal disorder each year. Like their human counterparts, dogs with the disease suffer from weakness and weight gain. They also lose their fur, gain pot bellies, and can have a shorter life span.
The fact that both humans and man’s best friend share the disease (which, to be clear, is not contagious) might be the key to finding better treatments or perhaps even a cure for Cushing’s for both species.
“One Health is all about the intersections between humans, other animals, and our environment,” says Jon Mochel, director of UGA’s Precision One Health Initiative. “What can we learn about similarities in diseases, such as cancer or cardiarenal and metabolic diseases, that are shared by humans and other animals? What conditions lead to disease transmission between animals and humans? What role does the environment play in all of this? And how can we create better conditions to optimize human, veterinary, and environmental health?”
One Health has been practiced at UGA for over a decade, but the concept accelerated with the launch of UGA’s Precision One Health Initiative, supported by a hiring initiative in 2021. With UGA’s new School of Medicine, UGA is one of 13 universities in the nation with schools of veterinary medicine, human medicine, and agriculture on one campus. Add these to UGA’s other strengths, which range from pharmacy and engineering to public policy, law, and business, and UGA is positioned to make a unique impact.
“By working together, we can accelerate the discoveries of cures and then speed up the translation of discoveries to bedside practice,” said Jack S. Hu, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at UGA’s One Health Symposium in November.
This interdisciplinary approach is being targeted at Cushing’s disease. UGA researchers are trying to understand, on a molecular level, the tumors that often cause the condition. And since the disease is much more common in dogs, researchers are collecting tumor biopsies from canine patients at UGA’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital.
“From those biopsies,” explains Mochel, who is also a co-investigator on the Cushing’s project, “we’ve created mini-tumors in dishes to screen for thousands of molecules in the cells. This process will allow us to determine which drugs could be safe and effective in fighting the disease.”
Researchers hope to customize optimal treatments for individual canine patients. If the trial treating dogs for Cushing’s is successful, then the next step is studying treatments in humans.
The research project could help with other applications as well. For example, Karin Allenspach, a clinician scientist and professor of pathology in the College of Veterinary Medicine, is a co-investigator on the Cushing’s research, helping create the mini-tumors called organoids, which serve as three-dimensional models of diseased tissues. These organoids can also be used in cancer research to help try out more drugs more quickly and pinpoint which ones should be tested in clinical trials. If this approach works, it means better treatments delivered to patients faster and cheaper.
UGA’s Precision One Health Initiative is just getting underway, but there’s already momentum toward making an impact.
“We have the resources, the talent, and the expertise to move this field forward,” Mochel says. “Our next step is to effectively translate these efforts from the lab to the patient’s bedside.”
–Aaron Hale, University of Georgia
