For most people, medical breakthroughs follow a familiar path. Human disease, human trials, human treatment.
In reality, it’s often less direct than that.
Some of the most important advances in human medicine begin in places that don’t immediately seem connected, including research focused on animals. In recent years, feline health studies have become one of those unlikely starting points, contributing to developments that extend well beyond veterinary care.
The EveryCat Health Foundation has spent decades funding research into diseases affecting cats. What that work has increasingly shown is that the biology behind those diseases often overlaps with human conditions in ways that can lead to shared treatments.
The concept is known as translational medicine, where discoveries in one species help inform care in another. It is not new, but recent examples tied to feline research have drawn renewed attention to its impact.
One of the clearest cases emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Years before COVID-19 appeared, researchers studying a feline disease called feline infectious peritonitis, or FIP, were working to understand how certain viruses behave and how they might be treated. FIP, caused by a feline coronavirus, had long been considered fatal.
Research supported by EveryCat helped lead to the development of an antiviral compound known as GS-441524. That compound later became the foundation for Remdesivir, one of the primary treatments used in hospitalized COVID-19 patients during the pandemic.
The connection is not accidental. Both FIP and COVID-19 involve coronaviruses, and the underlying mechanisms share enough similarities that treatments developed in one context can sometimes be adapted for another.
“Before the outbreak of feline infectious peritonitis in Cyprus, science didn’t know if it was possible to cure cat viruses,” said Dr. Dean Vicksman, board chair of EveryCat Health Foundation. “Now, we are seeing another team of scientists build on this discovery and show us how research for one species can be applicable to other species.”
That Cyprus outbreak, which emerged in 2023, brought urgency to the issue. A mutated and highly contagious form of FIP led to thousands of feline deaths. In response, EveryCat partnered with the Morris Animal Foundation to fund rapid research efforts, contributing nearly half a million dollars.
The work resulted in an effective treatment for the disease, allowing infected cats to recover. But the implications extended further. The same line of research is now being explored for its relevance to treating certain COVID-related complications in humans.
This is often how translational science progresses. A solution developed under pressure in one setting becomes the basis for a broader line of inquiry.
Cancer research offers another example.
EveryCat has supported studies examining tumor genetics in cats across multiple countries. By analyzing patterns in hundreds of feline tumors, researchers identified genetic similarities that also appear in human cancers, particularly breast cancer.
These overlaps do not immediately translate into treatments, but they provide a map. They point scientists toward mechanisms worth studying and, in some cases, potential therapeutic targets.
“This illustrates the power of feline research,” said Jackie Ott Jaakola, president and CEO of EveryCat Health Foundation. “You don’t have to love cats to benefit from these studies. Science is science and medicine is medicine.”
The idea is straightforward. Mammals share enough biological structure that diseases can behave in comparable ways. Studying those patterns in one species can accelerate understanding in another, especially when the disease is difficult to model in traditional lab settings.
Feline diseases, in particular, have proven useful because they can develop naturally in ways that mirror human conditions more closely than artificially induced models.
Still, the process is incremental. Not every discovery crosses over. Not every promising finding leads to a treatment. Translational medicine is less about immediate breakthroughs and more about building a foundation over time.
That foundation, in this case, stretches back decades.
Since its founding in 1968, EveryCat Health Foundation has funded more than $12 million in feline health research across over 30 institutions worldwide. Much of that work was not initially framed with human applications in mind. Its primary goal was improving the diagnosis and treatment of diseases in cats.
What has changed is how those findings are being viewed.
As global health challenges become more complex, the lines between veterinary and human medicine are becoming less rigid. Researchers are increasingly looking across species for insights, particularly in areas like infectious disease, oncology, and immunology.
The result is a broader understanding of how diseases function, and more pathways for developing treatments.
Funding remains a critical part of that process. Studies like these often begin with targeted grants, many of them supported by nonprofit organizations rather than large-scale pharmaceutical investment.
For EveryCat, that funding model is part of the mission.
“We are so proud that our funding is not only helping cats, but could also unlock potential cures for critical human illnesses,” Jaakola said.
The idea that research focused on animals could influence human health is not new. But as recent developments have shown, it is becoming harder to ignore.
In some cases, the next step forward in treating human disease may not start in a hospital or a lab focused on people. It may begin somewhere else entirely, with a different species, and a question that initially had nothing to do with us.
