A dog born with a deadly disease that prevents the body from using stored sugar has survived 20 months and is still healthy after receiving gene therapy at the University of Florida-putting scientists a step closer to finding a cure for the disorder in children. Called glycogen storage disease type 1A, the genetic disease stops the body from being able to correctly store and use sugar between meals.

This is no fish story. When it comes to the importance of veterinarians helping prevent, control and eradicate aquatic animal diseases, there's no need to exaggerate or boast. Disease has emerged as the number-one problem facing aquaculture, and finding ways to prevent, treat and cure disease has attracted global attention.

The latest special issue of Science in China Series C: Life Sciences focuses on the recent progress in the H5N1-related research field. Early 2009, eight human infection cases of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, with 5 death cases, were reported in China. This again made the world alert on a possible pandemic worldwide, probably caused by avian-origin influenza virus.

What do a college of veterinary medicine and a cancer treatment and research center have in common? The answer may be as plain as the nose on your dog's face. Researchers from North Carolina State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center are combining their expertise to pinpoint the cause of--and improve treatments for--non-Hodgkin lymphoma in human and canine patients.

The effects of H1N1 swine flu have been investigated in a group of piglets. Scientists writing in BioMed Central's open access Virology Journal studied the pathology of the virus, finding that all infected animals showed flu-like symptoms between one and four days after infection and were shedding virus two days after infection.

Scientists studying the clinical features of 11 sporadic human infections by triple-reassortant swine influenza A (H1) viruses that occurred in the three or so years leading up to the current swine flu epidemic, found that most of the patients had been exposed to pigs directly or indirectly, and that although they all recovered, some of them had severe symptoms, including some who were previously healthy.