“There are two major findings from this study,” says senior author Daniel Johnson of the University of California, San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“It showed us that it’s possible to target a transcription factor that drives oncogenesis, which is something that has been notoriously difficult in the past. Also, it demonstrated that pets with cancer can be a good representation of human disease and that clinical trials in pets may yield more reliable results than tests in mouse models.”

This drug, which was initially conceptualized to treat human head and neck cancers, is the first to target the transcription factor STAT3. STAT3 is present in a range of both solid and liquid tumors, including the majority of HNSCC cases.