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Join Us in the Fight against FIP

The Whittaker Lab is dedicated to research that improves our understanding of feline infectious peritonitis (FIP).  Follow our weekly blogs, monthly case reports, and research updates from the lab.

With the whole world working to curb the SARS-2 pandemic, we are sifting through the data looking for leads that will further our understanding of FIP.  Stay tuned for our take on the latest developments.

Latest Updates

  • Our latest study is out in bioRxiv. An outbreak of a pathogenic canine coronavirus type 2 in captive snow leopards in the US, with severe gastrointestinal signs
  • Predatory journals—a cautionary tale for veterinary authors, see article by Cornell CVM colleague and JAVMA/AJVR editor in chief Lisa Fortier
  • Cornell Feline Health Center launches CatGPT an AI chatbot that answers questions about feline health
  • News from the AVMA: Unlicensed antiviral products used for the at-home treatment of feline infectious peritonitis contain GS-441524 at significantly different amounts than advertised
  • Its been a long time coming, but our SARS-CoV-2 surveillance study in NYC cats is now out in bioRxiv– bottom line, there was a lot of asymptomatic spread (human-cat) even during ‘lockdown”
  • Since January 2023 an outbreak of FCoV (FCoV-23) has been ongoing on the island of Cyprus, causing a 40-fold increase in PCR-confirmed cases of FIP. Join EveryCat Health Foundation for a webinar “Feline Infectious Peritonitis: From the FCoV to FCoV23, The Cyprus Case or A New Perspective in the Way We See Coronaviruses.”
  •  Our new study on using hybridization capture next-gen sequencing approaches for molecular epidemiology of FIP outbreaks is now out in bioRxiv
  • We’ve received funding from EveryCAT Health Foundation for diagnostic test development – to move our existing postmortem testing for FIP (e.g.) to be more useful antemortem – with an initial focus on lymph node fine needle aspirates (FNAs) – we will be incorporating next-gen sequencing approaches to risk assess cats in the clinic –  stay tuned for more details
  • FCoV-23, a new FIP virus in Cyprus
  • Over the 2023 summer break, a 6th year veterinary student in Nigeria, Damilola Gbore, conducted research at the Whittaker Lab on coronavirus development and transmission in felines. Read more in his interview here!
  • We are collecting feline conjunctival swab samples!  To learn more, visit our research updates page.
  • Dr. Whittaker has been elected the James Law Professor of Virology.  This professorship is named after Dr. James Law (1838-1921), a Scottish veterinary surgeon who taught veterinary medicine and was one of the first faculty members at Cornell University.
  • We’ve received funding from EveryCAT Health Foundation for a drug discovery project to look for inhibitors of FCoV ion channels. Carolina Menchaca has summarized her exciting work in a new blog post.
  • A new clinical case is available – this time it involves an FIP look-a-like that highlights the challenges clinicians face when making a diagnosis.
  • Our newest Research Activity post discusses our transition to Next Generation Sequencing (NGS).
  • Our one health blog discussed antimicrobial stewardship as it applies to both antibacterial and antiviral drugs.

Clinical Cases 

  • Every cat with FIP has it’s own story. In this blog, we present clinical cases that have advanced our understanding of this devastating disease.  In our latest post we follow the course of dry FIP in a foster kitten.  These neurologic cases of FIP are often slow in onset and challenging to diagnose as they lack the fluid accumulation seen with the wet form.  Why do some cats develop this more insidious form of FIP?  In this blog we discuss the possible link between a mutation in a critical viral activation site and the development of meningoencephalomyelitis in a young cat.

Research Reports

  • Immunohistochemistry has long been considered the gold standard for diagnosing FIP but RNA in situ hybridization may present a more sensitive alternative for detecting small quantities of virus in tissue.  Our post highlights the use of this technique.
  •  We’ve partnered with Haiyuan Yu in the Department of Computational Biology and the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University to deconvolve a new 3D structural interactome of SARS-CoV-2.  The goal of this work is to predict functional interactions between the viral proteins and important components of the infected human cells.
  • We teamed up with cell biologist Nihal Altan-Bonnet at the National Institutes of Health to tackle the issue of exactly how do coronaviruses escape the cell.  Her team demonstrated that the mouse coronavirus MHV does not use exosomes, the common biosynthetic pathway, but instead harnesses the power of lysosomes.  Our Research Associate Marco Straus ventured into Cornell’s BSL-3 laboratory to illustrate that the lysosomal pathway is also used by SARS-CoV-2.  This discovery, published in Cell, paves the way to new targets for antiviral drug development.
  • Previous research in our laboratory on SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV demonstrated that there is conserved reliance on calcium ions in the viral fusion peptide.  Calcium channel blockers, also known as CCBs, are widely used in human medicine for the treatment of cardiac problems.  Our Research Associate Marco Straus collaborates with Dr. Susan Daniel to screen a panel of FDA approved CCBs for efficacy as antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 and turns up two promising hits.
  • Doctoral student Tiffany Tang from Chemical and Biomedical Engineering collaborates with the Whittaker Lab to publish new insights on proteolytic activation of the SARS-2 by furin at the S1/S2 activation site.  Hear how she uses viral psuedoparticles to study the impact of this critical viral activation site on infectivity and get our take on the possible origins of this unique insert in SARS-2.

One Health

  • Dr. Alison Stout gives an interview on the podcast Locally Sourced Science about the her research in the Whittaker Lab on feline coronaviruses and how people can protect their cats from SARS CoV-2.  She also authors a blog post on our One Health page about the potential for  COVID-19 to affect wildlife.
  • We feel that the lessons that have been learned from animal coronaviruses have the potential to provide valuable insights into the fight against COVID-19.  We have recently published a detailed review of vasculitis related complications of both FIP and SARS-CoV-2 on Cornell e-commons website.  Access the full text here:  https://ecommons.cornell.edu
  • The effect of SARS-2 on the human vascular system are only starting to be understood.  From cardiac complications and COVID toes in adults, to multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), the world of human medicine is tackling some of the more perplexing and severe complications of SARS-2 in real time.  Dr. Alison Stout writes a compelling letter to JAVMA outlining the similarities between FIP and SARS-2: https://avmajournals.avma.org