Since completing successful clinical trials of his pioneering use of electricity to target and destroy inoperable cancer tumors, Dr. Mike Sano and his team have performed more than 200 treatments on ailing horses at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine, highlighting how cutting-edge research at the college often leads directly to life-changing patient care.

Sano, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, now is in the midst of ongoing clinical trials using his electric-pulse therapy in dogs with breast cancer and liver cancer and in horses with melanoma.

Could the technology one day be used to treat human cancers? Absolutely, Sano said  as he led members of the Terrence Curtin Society, named in honor of the veterinary college’s founding dean, on a tour of the NC State Large Animal Hospital.

“We’ve tested this in all sorts of models, from cells in a dish to mice, and now we’ve done a series of clinical trials in animals to demonstrate that this works in real tumors in actual patients,” Sano said. “That’s one of the really amazing things about NC State is that we get to evaluate new and novel technologies on patients before we’re able to get them to humans as soon as we demonstrate safety and efficacy in other models.”

Getting to hear the latest on NC State’s pioneering cancer research from Sano and Dr. Mike Nolan, the Randall B. Terry Jr. Distinguished Professor of Oncology, was a precursor to the annual luncheon for members of the society, which recognizes dedicated supporters who contribute $1,000 or more annually to the College of Veterinary Medicine and those who have made a commitment through planned giving. 

The event, called Discovery in Action: Cancer Showcase, included tours of the hospital and Terry Companion Veterinary Medical Center with Nolan and Sano explaining the top-notch equipment — including a standing CT for equine and other large patients, and MRI and digital fluoroscopy machines for imaging — used in NC State’s cancer treatment services. 

“Dr. Sano’s research is a really good example of what can be done, seeing his program be so successful, really advancing cancer care for animals,” Nolan said. “We’re taking what he’s learning to provide new tools that we’re using all the time to treat patients in the clinic.” 

Dr. Sano, who studies the complex interactions between cells and tissues and electric fields, has been the principal investigator on multiple clinical trials developing new techniques for treating breast, liver and skin cancer. In 2024, he harnessed the power of electricity to target and destroy inoperable cancer in a therapy that eliminated 80% of tumors in horses.

A Large Team Effort

Dr. Nolan, who oversees the division of radiation oncology at the NC State Veterinary Hospital, is a principal investigator for several clinical trials aimed at developing novel cancer therapies. His laboratory research focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying cancer treatment-induced nerve injury and pain. 

Nolan led Terrence Curtin Society members on tours of the Terry Companion Veterinary Medical Center, mimicking the path a small animal client newly diagnosed with cancer would take. 

“We have three oncology services with six board-certified oncologists on faculty right now,” Nolan said. “They’re supported by roughly 15 residents and interns, and another 15 or 20 staff members who include front desk staff and nursing staff. So the team is relatively large.” 

The oncology services are medical oncology, radiation oncology and surgical oncology – currently provided by the general soft tissue and orthopedic surgeons at NC State.

In the room that houses the biplanar fluoroscopy machine, Nolan paused to explain how fortunate he feels to have access to such an advanced piece of equipment. The machine positions two X-ray cameras, one on each side of a patient, to capture simultaneous images, which allows clinicians to create 3D pictures of internal structures, such as blood vessels, soft tissues and bones.

“Every time I see it, which is literally every day, it reminds me of why I am here and what my aspirations are,” Nolan said. “This is human-grade equipment. It can take video in multiple planes through your body. We eventually could use equipment like this to, under camera guidance, very carefully place chemotherapy or radiation therapies directly into a tumor.”

Nolan said growing NC State’s cancer program to include faculty with the expertise to offer such interventional oncology services is a priority.

“This is an area where we can enhance cancer care, provide less toxic, more targeted treatments for patients,” Nolan said. “It’s also an area where we can help advance globally the state of veterinary oncology and also contribute to improving and testing new interventions that might benefit people.”

Advanced technology at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine has taken what used to require five or six weeks of daily cancer treatments and streamlined it into  fewer than four or five days, he said, with fewer side effects and greater efficacy.

Recruited by numerous universities, Sano told society members that he chose NC State because of its unique collaborative environment and its position within the Research Triangle of North Carolina.

“NC State has an excellent engineering school, we have a top veterinary school, we have top medical schools in the area, and that combination of things allows us to do cutting-edge research that no one else can do,” Sano said. “We’re one of the few places in the country that can do this depth of research, and it really elevates the type of work that we do here.”

A Remarkable Success Rate

Dr. Chris Merrill, who received her DVM from NC State in 1988 and a Ph.D. in pathology in 2002, is a Terrence Curtin Society member and attended the Cancer Showcase and luncheon primarily to hear from Dr. Sano, she said.

“Being in pathology, you tend to see things under a microscope, but you don’t get much of the clinical so I was fascinated to see what kinds of modalities they’re using right now, and how they’re advancing research,” she said. “I think Dr Sano’s technology is fascinating. It’s a fairly simple concept, so I’m wondering why hasn’t somebody done it before. I talked to him briefly about his success rate, and it’s remarkably high.”

Sano has been studying whether multiple short electric pulses, about 3000 volts lasting a millionth of a second, can eradicate tumors for about 15 years. He demonstrated the technology to the tour-goers by using a tissue model very similar to human tissue that his team also developed. 

“The goal is to kill cancer with electricity,” Sano said. “We insert needles into the tumor and then deliver a series of really short but high intensity electrical pulses, and those pulses basically cause the tumor cells to self-destruct. Everything you see turning purple is what would eventually die from the therapy over about 15 to 20 minutes.” 

During a question and answer period with society members, Nolan said that it’s relatively easy to cure cancer in a petri dish and in an engineered mouse so a staggering number of promising therapeutics make it into mouse trials and then human trials — but that the number that fail in human clinical trials is even more staggering. 

NC State’s ability to take promising therapeutics and use them in pets that have naturally occurring cancers, pets that live in our own homes, that develop cancer while they’re breathing the same air, drinking the same water, taking the same walk as us is really unique, Nolan said.

“These are animals whose cancers are developing in the span of their natural life,” he said. “We’re not introducing it, and we’re able to deliver cutting-edge interventions that benefit those animals and help us understand more globally how to treat cancer.”

Nolan stressed how remarkably proficient and prolific the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine is at generating innovative research ideas that are tested, refined, studied in clinical trials and then offered as life-changing therapeutics to clients at the NC State Veterinary Hospital.

“We can take the infrastructure and the expertise that exist here, light a flame under it and become the Mayo Clinic or the Dana Farber or the MD Anderson of veterinary oncology,” Nolan said. “That’s my motivation and our joint vision for the future.”