Dr. Shelly Vaden, professor of internal medicine at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine and president of the American College of Veterinary Nephrology and Urology, has been awarded the 2026 Clinical Research Award from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

The award recognizes an AVMA member who has made significant contributions to the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of diseases in animals. Vaden has been researching kidney and urinary diseases to help improve the lives of animals for nearly four decades.

“It’s an honor to get this award, especially because of the broad number of topics I have researched,” said Vaden, whose faculty role also includes teaching and mentoring veterinary students and hospital interns, residents and technicians. “It’s exciting that all of those topics I have studied have been looked at as meaningful.”

In honoring Vaden, the AVMA noted that her research has reshaped the diagnosis and management of upper and lower urinary tract diseases and contributed to the use of urinary biomarkers to assess chronic kidney disease in dogs, pooled urine sampling as the standard approach for measuring the urine protein-to-creatinine ratio and radiation therapy to treat feline idiopathic cystitis.

Vaden’s leadership in nephrology and urology has included not only creating the nation’s largest veterinary team in the field at NC State but also driving its creation as a speciality within the AVMA. The American College of Veterinary Nephrology and Urology was provisionally approved in 2022, with Vaden and Dr. Bernie Hansen, associate professor at NC State, as founding members. Vaden became the college’s president in 2024.

Her distinguished journey to the top of the field began 40 years ago when a clinician told her that nothing could be done to treat their canine patients suffering with glomerular disease. The condition causes protein to leak into urine, which hinders the kidney’s ability to remove waste.

Vaden wanted to know why.

“That is what has motivated me to always look a little further, the sense that there’s got to be something we can do,” said Vaden, who also is president of the International Renal Interest Society. “The more you work in the clinic, the more you find that there are always questions we don’t know how to answer, and those questions spark an interest in me, and I say, ‘Well, let’s get that answer. Let’s find out what we can do. Let’s try to do better than we’re doing.’” 

An Ability to Pivot

Since her first research project as a veterinary resident testing whether cyclosporine helped dogs with glomerular disease (it didn’t), Vaden has completed more than 50 studies and secured more than $6.5 million in grant funding as principal or co-principal investigator from organizations including the National Institutes of Health, the American Kennel Club, the Morris Animal Foundation and the National Cancer Institute.

Those decades of experience have reinforced for her that answers can evolve, leading her to revisit accepted practices. 

“Circumstances change, the way the study’s done changes, the way the drugs are designed change, and so the answers do change over time,” she said. “It’s really important as a clinical researcher to be able to pivot, to be able to look at something and say, ‘This might have been done before, but let’s look at it again in a different way.”

Being able to ask the questions and accumulate her body of work has been possible only because of the tremendous support of her colleagues and administration and the resources she has received from NC State, she said, adding that the dedication of her longtime research technician, Tonya Harris, and clinical technician, Patty Secoura, and the work of the veterinary college’s clinical studies core team led by Brianna Johnson have been invaluable.

“That team helped me with research grants, they helped with different protocol approvals, they can help contact owners of potential study participants,” she said. “They help with recruitment, help with the screening, help with the visits. They are a critical resource to being able to get these pets scheduled and projects done.”

Among Vaden’s most recent research projects was a collaboration with the veterinary college’s regenerative medicine group to study whether stem cells have a role in treating incontinence in dogs.

She is currently collaborating with Dr. Autumn Harris on several studies aimed at improving the management of chronic kidney disease in dogs and cats, with Dr. Allison Kendall on a project to characterize incontinence in male dogs and with Drs. Matthew Breen and Paul Hess to improve the diagnosis and treatment of urothelial carcinoma in dogs.

“Dr. Vaden’s career embodies what clinical research is meant to be — the steady pursuit of better answers for patients, carried all the way from the exam room into everyday practice,” Dr. Michael Q. Bailey, president of the AVMA, said in a news release about the award. “She has transformed how we diagnose and treat kidney and urinary disease in dogs and cats, and she is now helping build an entirely new veterinary specialty so this work continues for generations to come. We are proud to honor her with this award.”

‘A Lasting Impact’

Vaden received her DVM from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, completed an internship at Cornell University and then earned a Ph.D. at NC State after her residency in small animal internal medicine. She was hired as a triple threat faculty member — teacher, researcher, clinician — in 1991.

In nominating Vaden for the award, Dr. Kathryn Meurs, the Randall B. Terry Jr. Dean of the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine, said her leadership in groundbreaking studies on chronic kidney disease, urological disorders and regenerative medicine has earned her recognition as one of the foremost experts in the field.

“Dr. Shelly Vaden is an exceptional veterinarian,” Meurs said, “whose expertise, dedication to clinical research and leadership will have a lasting impact on the field of veterinary nephrology and urology.”