Michelle Moyal (Host): Welcome to the Cornell Veterinary Podcast, where we deep dive into the discovery, care and learning that happens at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Moyal, visiting Assistant Clinical Professor, your favorite Purina veterinarian. And someone who is currently using her headphones as a headband because she is growing out her hair.

I just thought everybody should know that. But more importantly than me growing out my hair is my guest today and I'm very excited. So, Dr. Marta Castelhano, I think I tried to, I tried to nail that, Associate Research Professor and Director of the Cornell Veterinary Biobank, we're going to talk about it people, an amazing sample and data collection, at Cornell that brings together the legacies. Ooh, I love that word. And, we're going to touch upon that as well of our patients and the kindness of their owners with the very best researchers in the world. You heard it here, allowing everyone to work together to improve and extend the lives of our animals and their humans. Welcome. I'm so excited to have you here.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Thank you Michelle. So am I. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's always a pleasure to be with you. It's such a pleasure to be here.

Host: I know this feels like cheating everyone, everyone who, may or may not see us, but, I know Marta and she's just a spectacular human being, so I'm not going to lie. I'm very excited about hearing the research she does, but even more excited of just catching up with my friend.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yes. And the last time we spoke, we had a very good wholehearted conversation, about the work we do and the impact we have together. So that was really special. I think we both ended up crying. So that was. Crying just with truly like with the power of our impact to patients. So we'll talk about that today.

Host: I love it. So we're going to jump right in because I am always trying to be mindful of your time and I want our listeners to not have to listen to this in multiple parts if I can help it. Although I tend to be a talker. People are rolling their eyes. So I always like to ask, what was your journey like?

Just like broad journey, but then what brought you to Cornell? Like how, how did you end up here working with the Biobank? We'll jump into Biobank in a little bit, but what were those moments that brought you here?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yeah, Michelle. So I was thinking of that, like what brought me here, where I am today. And I would have to say it's just I'm from this really tight knit community back home. My parents, mom and dad are, first to not just be college educated, but the first to go to school in their family. And so we would spend our weekends actually helping in the farms of my grandparents.

And, the real beauty about that, it gives you an appreciation, love for nature, for animals and for the community that comes together to serve the land. And so that's who I am and where I'm from. Then I went to vet school in Lisbon, Portugal. There was a professor of mine that had done his PhD here.

And he talked about the greatness of this place. And so I wanted to be there. I came as a student. And really I never looked back. I went to another university that shall not be named. And I chose this one.

Host: That's right. like Harry Potter. That's right. Cornell's the only university that exists on this podcast.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yeah. So we had, there was another lovely experiences of in other places. I felt a sense of community and just like working together like this, this working together for a common goal that I had not experienced in other places. And I just was a student, came back as a student and then decided to stay forever. And that was 20 something years ago, Michelle.

Host: Wow. First of all, time goes by very quickly. Um, but the other thing is, I know we're, we're joking about other universities, but being at other universities, other places of employment that actually helps shape you into a person that can bring lots of different ideas and lots of, I talk about diversity of thought on this podcast all the time, so that way when you come back to Cornell, like I was in practice for many years, I come back to Cornell. The goal is to bring variety and then when you work with your team, you have all of these perspectives which make teams better and love that for us.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Absolutely. And so I'm about to go in to join a group, so I don't know if I've told you, but I contribute with a group that has many, many, many other countries. I think we have 42 countries represented where we come together twice a year to build standards. And it's almost like building consensus across nations in the written words.

 And I just love it. I love perspectives. I was also joking about other universities. What drives me and what I love is actually like coming together for the empowerment of kind of the common goal. And the common goal for me, Michelle, is patients. I mean, I'm a veterinarian, so. Animals and, humans. And so if we can serve the humans as a side dish to our work, I'm so happy to do it. My first goal is as a veterinarian. My sister's a physician. She takes care of the other side of the leash, and I serve the animals.

Host: The other side of the leash. Oh my gosh, I love that. What a bunch of slackers your family is really, my gosh, she's a physician. I mean, I say that, but I have a sibling who is a physician's assistant and another sibling who is an engineer and we have a similar background, like our parents didn't have those opportunities to go to school as well, so.

 The impact coming from maybe more humble beginnings doesn't matter where you come from. The impact is awesome. And we're working together and we talk a lot about one health in veterinary medicine, like collaborating with teams. And our goal is always patient care, but you're right. What about the amazing things that we might be able to impart on the treatment or diseases on the human side, because some of them don't mimic each other at all, but like some canine diseases or feline diseases can mirror the human aspect. So that's very exciting. Oh, okay. So here you are in this position. First and foremost, you're a veterinarian, but now you're the Director of this Biobank we have so, tell all of our listeners, because I didn't know what a Biobank was. So tell our listeners one, what is it and two, why are biobanks important? Because they are.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: So, I would love to hear your thoughts. That's normally what I do. I would love to hear what you think about this.

Michelle Moyal (Host): She's asking me to talk more. Everyone, she's asking me to.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: I love it because I think that really biobanking is different for everybody. I can tell you what it is. I can tell you like the populations I serve, but it's normally a different thing for different people. What it is, in its essence, is we collect samples, we process them, we test them.

Host: Yeah. Samples meaning blood.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Blood, tissue, whatever, surgical biopsy, or after our patients pass away, with consent from, with informed consent from their owners. And then we use those samples to kind of bring to life discoveries that wouldn't be possible without that little sample. So we use a, a little portion of extra blood from our patients to kind of like bridge the gap between what happens, the excitement that happens in the labs with the excitement that happens in the clinic.

And so I come from a clinical backgrounds. I love the clinics. I love to be of impact to patients. I love clinical research, I really do. I think if we can do it better for our patients and if we can translate our work in a way that gives hope so the owners don't have to go through this again, or so the families don't have to go through this again.

So the truth is for me, what really excites me is the distribution part of the Biobank. So it's almost like we're a library, truly Michelle, and we bring the right book to the person who can read it. We bring the book this beautiful book that was created by, I don't know the name of your dogs, but or cats, but created by them and we process it in a way that somebody can understand it and then tell you more.

So this is kind of the beginning of precision medicine because we then can offer a solution that's right for your dog or your cat. I need to know the names.

Host: We lost a dog a few months ago, but our current dog is Chester. We have a cat named Greg and then we have another cat named Roy Kent. For all you Ted lasso lovers out there, you better know that my cat has some messed up legs and screams at us. But you mentioned precision medicine. So what does that mean? Does that mean that the hope is that the medicine you do will be very specific to the disease?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yes. So the diagnostics or the medicine we give is the right one for that right patient.

Michelle Moyal (Host): Yep. Which is often hard, right? Sometimes we're not guessing, but sometimes you're giving a medication that maybe has some effectiveness for a group of diseases, but maybe not that very specific type that that animal has.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Correct. That's exactly right. And what we also found is, that's really something, and that was my mentor that the two of us talked about when we were last together, but my mentor was an MD oncologist that really believed that there's part of precision medicine that is kind of like bringing up the hope in the patient, and that is huge, right?

We, with our patients, it's, it's really difficult to bring up their hope. I mean, we can bring up their lifestyle, we can improve the joy that they have in their lives. They don't know that they're struggling with cancer, which is such a blessing, such a blessing. But then we give hope to their parents.

We actually give hope to their parents. So, what's your audience may or may not know is that last night I shared the video that we created together, with me and a, a patient of ours. And she's this wonderful woman cancer survivor who, like she believes in biobanking. That's why I always invite you to use your own words to describe biobanking because she described it in the video.

She described what she thinks biobanking is, it's unrehearsed and it is what it is for her and for her, it's the hope, right? It's, she gives one sample. She gives samples for human biobanks. She gives samples to veterinary biobank from her dogs. And it's the hope that she won't have the next generation, herself, she won't have to struggle with whatever is going on. And the truth is that many times, Michelle, our patients are not with us for long enough, but their legacies live on.

Host: Yes. Back to that word. Right. That's why, we included that in your description. I love that. The legacy of patients is far beyond just the love and the joy they brought to their family if they're participating in the biobank.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yes. And so we say to owners many times and actually one of the Biobank donors that was from our college, we recruit even internally, as you can imagine, and she had lost her lab.

Host: We do that a lot. Everyone, they're nearby.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: They're nearby and they, they're volunteers for, for participation.

Michelle Moyal (Host): We, we feel bad for our pets sometimes, right? Because I'm like, I have a dog. He would be great. Let's donate some blood.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: They love us to pieces and we could say like, Bella, that is no longer with us, she passed away five years ago, right? Bella just went to Stanford. She's saving lives today. She's not saving just Labrador lives. She's saving Labrador lives and she's saving human lives. So you can imagine like the power. So Bella had, osteosarcoma, say osteosarcoma is a pediatric cancer.

And so, if you can imagine like the mom feels the power of that contribution. Because Bella still lives with us. I mean, we have a freezer. What we normally say in our group is we have a freezer full of hope, right? Because we keep sending them out.

They keep going out and, bringing joy and bringing kind of like bringing what they brought in life now to a whole population in, as they're gone.

Host: A couple of things that I think I want to highlight with why I think that this is, I think some people might listen and be like, oh, sad. And I agree. It's always sad to lose a loved pet or a loved human right, from a disease. But it's so hopeful, like you said, because that family can say, I lost my pet, but look at what I'm doing for the greater good, and I hope no one else has to experience what I experienced, right? Or Bella will be a legacy for others. I'm so excited that she can help and it, and it helps us too, right? It helps our heart, like we lost this precious being in our lives because the bond is so significant and you hope that you can help others keep their bond intact with their animals, right?

Because they're such a source of love, and for everyone listening, osteosarcoma just happens to be a cancer of bone and it's something that we see in dogs. Well, I mean more commonly in dogs and in humans they see it on the pediatric side, so on the child side. So another great example of how these diseases can help impact one another, like treatment wise. Oh my gosh, so you kind of gave us an overview of what it is and why it's important and it sounds incredibly important because when I think about this, even in live patients, you're a clinician, we would remove a mass and we would think about just sending it to the pathologist.

If you haven't listened to the episode with Dr. Andrew Miller yet, everyone, go back and listen to what we do in practice sending it to a pathologist, but, even after potentially they've passed or maybe if there's extra blood, extra. I like the way you said that, like, it's almost sustainable, right?

Like we don't want to just toss the sample as long as the owner is okay with it, we can use this for greater good. And that's what Cornell is all about, right? Like, do the greatest good. And so you are doing that. Ugh. I love that. You're a perfect example of this, of like doing the greater good. So, so once you get this sample, what, like what is its journey? Is there a journey?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yeah, there is a journey, so the journey actually always ends at the person reading the book, at the researcher. That's really when we feel complete, right? Bella went to Stanford, Bella went to Roswell Park. Bella went someplace where she can make a difference. So she brought joy in the park and she's now bringing joy to other patient researchers and then researchers translating into discoveries that can help other patients. Now, we help veterinary patients, so we have veterinary researchers that come to us. And through translational research, we actually are also helping humans. Now, I don't know if you've talked about this with other podcasts, guests, but I'm a veterinarian.

I care for, I mean. Our sisters right, are caring for the other side of the leash. We are here caring for this side. So of course I care about the dogs primarily. That's what my oath is to, but the truth is that if I can help humans live longer, healthier lives too, why not?

Host: Yeah, they have to be there for their pets. And because we love them. And obviously I'm, I'm making light of the situation, but the, the other thing I want to make sure people understand is, yes, you're a veterinarian and, and we have researchers involved, but you have a staff, they're not all like, you have veterinary technicians, kind of like an equivalent of nurses. You have other staff. Like this is not a one veterinarian, one researcher. Like a pure kind of group. Like we have a lot of people involved in this.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: That's correct. It's not a woman and a freezer. It's actually, 11 women. We just got, our first male veterinarian, just to add some diversity to our group because you probably saw us before. We were a group full of women. We have three, four now amazing students.

Three are veterinary students and one is a PhD student. And so all working in the biobank, all serving patients and changing lives, I think that they feel the impact of our work. These are people that are highly skilled. They care for the legacies. They care for the power of your contribution to us.

Host: Not just the science. They're there. They're there for the passion. They're there for the love, they're there for the, for the future.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: They even say each tube represents an animal, a patient that sometimes no longer is no longer with us, so they take it very seriously. Right? Very seriously. There's a lot of care that goes into every step of the way. We have colleagues that from all over the world really. Our group is really international.

They've come in and they are here to serve the needs of our patients, to serve the needs of our research community through our work to be of service to others.

Host: Yeah. I love that. And for everybody listening, just if you don't know, the veterinary profession happens to be right now, a large majority of women. So it's not uncommon, not surprising to me that you had a bunch of like awesome, powerful women on your team. And then now you have an awesome, powerful man joining your team.

And then we have diversity of thought. So it's not a surprise. It's not like people are like, we set it up to have all women. That's not the way it works. It just so happens a lot of people in this profession happen to, identify as female and that's awesome. So you have this team, you have everybody that are working together and they're clearly passionate and you have this biobank full of, ugh, I love it legacies. But there's more, right? You've done more for this. So I, I'm going to read this because there are like letters and numbers here, and I don't want to mess this up because. You spearheaded the biobank becoming the first biobank in the world. That's right. The entire world. I don't want to make sure, I want to make sure everybody knows that to receive accreditation to something called the ISO 20387 standard. If that was supposed to be ISO, then I'm very sorry.

Okay. ISO. And that sounds very important because there's like letters and there's a bunch of numbers. So we know that that must be important. So, what the heck does that mean and why is this a good thing?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yeah. Why is ISO Accreditation a good thing? So, it's really interesting. I could tell you everything about ISO and why accreditation matters. Why did we do it first is a story that I think is worth telling. Can I tell it Michelle?

Host: We and we love being first.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yes, we love being first. We were, we were, very excited about being first, but we wanted to be first ahead of all of the human biobanks because this is a ISO standard for everyone in the world and for human biobanks, veterinary banks.

Host: But they don't have to have it?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: They don't have to have it.

Host: But any biobank would love to have it.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Would love to have it. So what they do?

Host: Okay. We're set up.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: So it was, I don't even remember how many years ago, Michelle, but I was invited to represent a US position in Biobanking at ISO. And just like you, I was like, oh, this is interesting. Why would they want my voice? I'm a veterinary biobanker. Everybody around the room was a human biobanker, all MD biobankers. And here I am going to Germany. The meeting that year was in Germany.

And amazing people, amazing perspectives. Many clinicians, many people that really have a tremendous impact and understand the value of what we call standardization, right? Doing things the same so it's comparable. So if you want to do studies with dogs and you want to do studies with humans, you have comparability between the samples that come in and now it opens the playing field for everybody to work together.

Host: So these standards mean that if I have a sample here in Ithaca, that I treat it or process it and do exactly the same thing as someone who might be accredited in Germany, in France. And then if we ever need to compare data, we're like, yes. They've all been treated the same. Now we really can compare. Right? It's now, it is apples to apples, not apples to oranges.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Correct. I remember actually through the pandemic talking to colleagues in Austria, in Human Biobanks, and they were saying, standardization allows us now to study this COVID samples that are coming from places of different origins and bring them together and study them together.

Because we are nothing without this diversity in, I mean, especially when you have COVID. So, COVID needs us to all work together for a common solution, right? So contribute samples for all these amazing humans, many of them who are no longer with us, and left this again, this legacy to say I'm no longer here.

But I consent for you using my sample for a better future for the next generation. And here we are. And so the power of this, why first, and why it's important is we, my mentor, an MD oncologist, Christie Richards, was just this phenomenal woman. She was here at the college and I'm speaking to her in past tense.

And I will tell you why. We unfortunately did lose Christie, but before we lost her, she wanted to see us become the first biobank in the world. And she did that when she got out of remission of this triple negative breast cancer, and so she got out of remission of triple negative breast cancer.

I was going to meetings for the standard. The standard comes out and she said, what if, Marta, what if we put our stamp in the world and we say, we're not just the best, we're the first. And we did. We were like, oh my God, can we do this? Who do we do this Michelle? We had three months. We applied the first day that the accreditation program came out, she made us do it.

We stayed late, we applied and we're like, oh my God, what did we get ourselves into? We applied to be accredited, and they're coming in in three months, and my mentor is in New York City battling cancer and she wanted to create a woman warrior group. Which I of course signed up for, that supported her during this time of challenge.

And I want to do it all, Michelle, but what I really want to do is to learn the power of resilience that comes when you are faced with challenge. And so I, amazingly got permission from our department chair at the time, Michelle, to travel back and forth to New York City and serve my mentor, and serve my team at the same time for the accreditation.

So we did and we did it, and she was so proud of us and I was able to really do both things well. The team came together. Community comes together when you need them. Like, if you empower people, they'll show up for you. They'll show up for you. So, until about one week before when Christie called me.

So she called me down, women warrior. This time I brought Ricardo. Ricardo is my husband for those who don't know, also a veterinarian also from Portugal. And we came down and he's amazing. I lucked out. And we came down and we were about one week out of our accreditation audit, and she said, I won't be able to go there.

My body can't take me there, but I'll be there. I will be there. And so we, sorry, that will bring me some tears. We mustered the strength, Michelle, because we knew that there was no way but up. We knew that together we could do this, we could find the power within and make her proud, even if she was looking at us from above.

And so four days after she passed, we got audited and we got accredited, and we became the first biobank in the world to receive accreditation and we dedicate it to her.

Host: Thank you for sharing that. That is, I'm short on words, but what I hope everyone who's listening or watching pays attention to is sometimes it just takes one person who believes that you can do it to tell everyone, like, we can do it even when everybody else is like, this is in three months.

I don't think we can make this happen. Or why do we need it? And I know we joke about being number one, but a person who had their own struggles and knew the value of Biobank in general because they're a person who was going through obviously worst possible scenario and you did it. And now, that wonderful accomplishment. Yes, it's something to celebrate, but that's another legacy. That person set up the legacy for what you continue to do at Biobank. So thank you for sharing that.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: And at that same time, Michelle, we got an opportunity that Christie connected me with, as well to go to the University of Washington. I didn't want to go, Christie was struggling that day. I was in New York City, s erving her and I didn't want to go. It was a meeting of these amazing colleagues of the Dog Aging Project.

They had just gotten funding and they wanted to hear my perspective. Sorry. I'll, I'll clean up my tears.

Host: No. No.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Bother you because they don't bother me at all.

Host: They do not bother me, nor should they bother the audience.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Exactly.

Host: This is real. This is real life.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: It's real life. It's real life. So I was invited to go to the University of Washington to meet with this amazing colleagues that Christie had introduced me to, at the medical school at the University of Washington.

As soon as my plane departed out of JFK, Christie got admitted to the hospital, and this is January. She had just came out of remission in December. We had just put the application for accreditation. Everything is coming together. And I was like, oh my God, I'm losing my mentor. This doesn't matter. This is just a job. This is just research, and she said, it matters. It matters. So I went. And I sent her a picture of me in the mirror in the morning. She loves pictures in the mirror doing the strong woman pose. This is at medical school. She said,

Host: Goes with the women warrior.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Goes with the women warrior, you

Michelle Moyal (Host): Strut. Be a boss. Everyone. Everyone look in the mirror and be a boss. Doesn't matter who you are.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Exactly do it. And she said, you are going to show up. And I said, but they already got money for the project. They have no money for biobanking. And she said, go and show them your greatness. And I did. I went in and I fell in love with that group. Four months later, we put a grant to become the official biobank of the Dog Aging Project, just one month after Christie passed, and it was my first NIH grant.

And so I have to tell you, Michelle, that grief has a lot of power because it comes from love. And so I think, in between this, I had so many other experiences because now my mentor can't mentor me in writing my first NIH grant. She can't be there for me as I'm preparing my team for accreditation.

But she's there for me in so many other ways, right? Because she's showing me resilience, she's showing me what it is to, and we still talk about this to this day because she's a mentor to us, still in my group, we talk about her every day. We cry sometimes at meetings just thinking of the power of this woman.

And we say the truth is that she lives with us. And Christie was of this belief, Michelle, that you can choose your own joy. You can choose it. It's a choice that we make every day. And she said, the people that believe in themselves, they don't die, really. And so she had this positive outlook, this amazing outlook in life, and she decided that cancer shall not take her positive attitude. She was so proud of us, Michelle and we of her because the lesson of resilience that you get from a mentor at 2:00 AM in the morning, when she can't sleep; it's, I would say more powerful than I've ever felt anywhere, I was the, best I've ever felt. The best lessons I've ever gotten was from that powerful woman and she used to say, my patients are powerful. My patients, their bodies sometimes are completely consumed and their spirits are above us, Michelle.

Host: Yes. I mean, I believe having been in practice, I think, and anybody who works with animals, and I'm sure with people too, to a degree, I, I don't know. But I can say seeing animals decline, yet they love their people or they can still, when people say to me they can barely move, but they're wagging their tail, I'm like, look at this love, and as an aside, I've talked a lot about mentorship here, or at least I, bring it up a lot and I think that your mentor sounds fantastic in so many ways and what I want people to think about, because I, I have mentioned this before, is mentorship is not just about teaching you what you should know in the area of expertise you'd like to pursue.

Sometimes it is about networking, like pushing you to go to Washington and meeting previous colleagues or telling you you can do it in those moments where you feel like you can't or being a sounding board. Because it's a two-way street. Mentorship is not just one direction, right. It's not unidirectional.

So she sounds like the epitome of a mentor that I want for my students, that I want for new doctors, that I want. So I'm thrilled that you are also in a position to mentor others because I can see what an impact she had on you.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Well, she keeps having it. Right. So the success that we have, and I know you feel like this, Michelle, because I think what your audience may or may not know is that yes, you interview really amazing people, but you may know that Dr. Moyal is pretty amazing herself.

The truth is that every new person I bring to my group, I love for them to meet with Dr. Moyal, and then they remind me of the greatness. I think that a little bit of Christie lives on in you because what she loved the most is to empower others to reach places that we will never be able to reach. You put them on your shoulders, you put this powerful women, right on your shoulders, and you help them see places that you can't.

And that's, success in itself. You don't need to see them. You help somebody get there. And so one of the stories that I've always heard Christie say is I would say, oh, I just got this, I got this grant. And she would say, of course you did. Like she knew. She knew that I was going to get it.

 Same thing like Dr. Cheryl Balkman, one of our phenomenal oncologists at Cornell. She used to say, Christie looks up, and she expects you, Michelle, to meet her gaze. Because she knows that that's where you belong. It's in this greatness of, I'm going to raise up my gaze and you're going to rise to meet it, Michelle, because that's where you belong.

So that's empowerment of others in a way that not many people do it, but in the Dog Aging Project, I found collaborators that do it. Like, just like that. They, look up at me and I, what can I do? They're looking up, they think of me as the greatest, and I rise up to meet their gaze, so I do that to others.

Host: And I want that message to be passed on to everyone, so, again, I appreciate you sharing that this one person, and here you are doing it for others, and I hope people listening, you don't have to have a mentor that you're doing this for. Maybe it is your dog. Like every day I go to work hoping to be the best person that my previous dog thought I was, right?

Like, I strive to help other animals because I want my animal to be like, yes, she was my person. She was a great person, so we could do it for a lot of reasons. So if you don't have that person in your life, then you know what? Do it for your cat. Do it for your lizard. Do it for your dog, do it for your mom, do it for your best friend.

Right. But, we're in this together and you said a lot of good things and you mentioned, writing your first grant. And I'm going to touch upon just a slightly difficult subject because research there are some funding concerns across the board. So can you tell our audience, how important is it in the face of these difficulties, how are you facing this challenge? Right? Is there something that Biobank did that you're like, well, I hold onto that and that's how I keep going with this research, or I'm going to continue to apply for grant. Like how do you tackle this challenge?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yeah. We've been personally impacted by it. And the truth is that, I'm going to tell you the story of a 12-year-old that wrote me a letter for her birthday and said, Dr. Castelhano, this year for my birthday, I would like to contribute to research. So all the presents of all the people that are coming to my birthday and I went to Cornell and I said, listen guys, I am going to have the most important donor supporting me. And of those $10, it really doesn't matter how much she receives for her birthday. It doesn't matter because that woman, she sees the power, so she had just lost her dog to canine cognitive dysfunction. It's the canine equivalent of Alzheimer's disease. I have an NIH grant to study Alzheimer's disease. She looked up a story of mine and she said, I want to support you for my birthday in honor of my pup. And so everybody that came to her birthday party, gave us a donation and we, in honor of her puppy, we now have this fund.

It's very small, Michelle, but it's very big in our hearts. And this amazing, I have trouble calling her a kid to be honest, because how big do you have to be to believe in the power of the legacy of your contribution. And she said, I don't need this, but you do. You can do great things with my contribution.

And so now wherever I go, it's really funny, Michelle, I put all of the NIH grants, all of the things that support me and this amazing little girl that is now one of my supporters, she believes in me, which means a lot because the most important role in our lives, Michelle, which I know you have too, is to be role models for the next generation.

And I want to be a good role model. I mean this, person believes in me, this amazing human being believes in what I'm doing, and that's a powerful message.

Host: Oh my gosh. And I know we said it's a small contribution, but what if that dog holds the key? Right? Like we're doing so much research into Alzheimer's, and as someone who has been personally affected by it, it is so difficult to have a family member in that position. So difficult. So, thank you for that.

 Is there something like a project you're working on right now that you're like, oh, this is the one. Like I hope we can unlock it. Is it this, is it something else?

I mean, there, there are so many things.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yes. And I'm committed. I mean, I am a passionate person. You can see it as I speak and as I, engage with you, I believe in what I do. I, I am to be of service to others. I want to do this. There is this amazing project that I'm doing looking at lymphoma in humans and in dogs.

Host: Lymphoma, a type of cancer.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Correct.

Host: Very common cancer as far as animals are concerned.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Correct. And in people as well. And it is in legacy of our wonderful Christie. That's what Christie used to study was lymphoma. And so, we decided to start looking at kind of the two pathways for the disease. And so we have human contributions for this study. We have animal contributions for this study.

We follow them longitudinally and then at the end of the day, or at the end of their lives, they do what we call the final gift, which I take very seriously because that final gift, my team, I mean, there's no dry eye in the room really, because we're honoring that final contribution.

And now let's bring it back to your previous, wonderful guest, Dr. Andrew Miller. He's unlocking the power, unlocking the power of that contribution, because after they are gone, they contribute hundreds of samples and so that contribution goes to hundreds of places. And so that is a really, really exciting project.

We're following them longitudinally. As you know, Michelle, we lose dogs with cancer much faster. And sometimes, I mean, cancer lymphomas are much more curable in humans than they are in dogs. And here we are learning with our patients and hopefully improving their lives.

Host: And I think for those listening, well, and Dr. Miller is a pathologist, so another great example of collaboration among doctors and teams to contribute to research that could help people and pets. And what's tough in veterinary medicine, and we say this often; sometimes it's hard for people to even understand that their pet has cancer because they're like, they were just fine, but this pet has probably had a growing cancer, maybe subtle signs of pain or something else.

And in humans, we might be able to articulate that to a doctor or maybe we'll catch it on some more preventative healthcare, but it's very difficult on the animal side. So I'm just so thrilled that, again, you're adding to the hope that we can have for our pets that do get these types of diseases.

So if someone listening right now is like, yes, I would like to look at what they're working on. I just want to keep it in mind in case I have a pet who's affected or I can help others. What do they do? Is there a website?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Yes, there's a website you can reach to us and a real human. We have robots in the lab, Michelle, but they just keep our samples. So our samples, because they're kept very cool. Very cool. So minus 80, minus 196.

We have robots that work at that temperature. But the truth is that, it's a human being that will get back to you and say, thank you for offering that final gift, and this is how you can support us.

So you can continue to support the Biobank. We have really exciting things happening right now. We have a really exciting projects. I am of the thought, Michelle, that this is a time to invest. We need to work because our patients, if there's less funding in research, our patients are unfortunately not dying at a slower pace.

So I have a calling to respond to their needs. Right? We don't know if we were able to get this discovery in time for us not losing Christie, would it be possible that we could have saved her life? And so we have patients that are in that pipeline that are holding hope that the researchers are just in time to save them. Patients that come and see you, Michelle.

And so I think that's actually the greatness of this is the time to contribute, to not slow down, to pace up, to actually do more because the patients need us and we serve them.

Host: I have no words. And for those of you who are shocked, you should be because, that says a lot. I really appreciate you talking about all of this with us, and I want everybody to go to Cornell Biobank. You could find it online, just Google it. You could support, in many ways, it's not just about giving samples, right?

We talked about the challenges that research is facing and maybe there are different ways to help and we would love for everyone to see if they can be involved to help, because again, this helps animals and it helps their people. I love that what you said on the other end of the leash. And, before we end this lovely conversation, which I, I always hate to end these conversations, but sometimes I just want the audience to get to know you and I really appreciate that you've shared really personal stories because again, impact, about mentorship and family.

I think that's really important because I want people to understand that they could see themselves in us, in our scientists and our research and our doctors, and I love that. So I would love to ask you a couple of lighter questions if you're okay with that. It has nothing to do with scholarship. Okay. It has nothing to do with scholarship kids. So, if you weren't a veterinarian or a Biobank Director, like in a parallel universe, what job would you have?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: I thought about this before. How would I serve the community that I serve? I think I would love to be a patient navigator. Do you know those, those people that just support the patient going through the hospital, explaining to them and say, this is what they just told you, and this is where we need to go next. This is where they're asking us to go next.

Host: Making things understandable, translating things for people. Yeah.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Translating things and almost like giving them hope that somebody's going to be there for you. Just like you've been there for other human beings. I'm going to be there and just hold your hand as this difficult process goes through.

And I feel like, that again, that was my mentor's dream. She wanted to be a patient navigator. Because she said, I just want more time to support my patients and tell them, I'm here for you. I'll walk you through. I'll explain this to you. And so I feel like there's a lot of power in the service that we could provide.

Host: Yeah. And veterinarians do that every day, I feel like. Right. Literally every day. I think that's very amazing of you. Meanwhile, I'm like, Ooh, I would want to be a wedding planner. I would totally do that. And so when you are not hard at work, what are you doing? Like, what do you do when you get to go home?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: I have to say that I love to meet new places. I love history. I really love history and I love to meet new places, but not touristic places, like the real essence of places. And so in learning the history and learning, sometimes actually oral tradition, so people telling you stories that don't have the capacity to write them down, they don't know how to write them down.

So to just learn from their power of the human library, I'm always saying. I love the concept of the human library. Instead of going to get a book, you get a friend and you ask them to tell you their story and you just sit with them. So that's what I love. I really love to go places with people. And I know that it seems in character to me, but the reality is something that people don't really know about me, Michelle, is that I'm an introvert.

Host: I'm going to say this to everyone and you should be like, wait, what? She's an introvert. But look how open she was. Look at how much she was willing to discuss, but, many of us, I am not speaking for myself because I'm very much an extrovert, but many of us in this field are introverts and it takes a lot, right?

It's about how we replenish our battery. It takes a lot to replenish that battery, especially if we're social. So the fact that you are an introvert, but that time, that quality time you have when you're away from work is spent talking to people about, like the stories of where they're from it says a lot.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: And history, which is I think, actually the story of the people. I don't know if I told you, but I received an award last year, went to Australia to get it, and an elder opened the conference and just hearing the story of the people who inhabited this land before we were here.

Before we came. It's so powerful. It is what it is. It's reality. But I, I feel like those people are the real scholars because they're teaching us kind of the power. And I do believe in that. I don't think that we'd only require schooling. It requires ancient like wisdom from within.

Host: I love that. And if you involve the food, because I think food tells a lot about culture and history. Right? Like what they grew at the time. And if you involve that, I am in. Because I also love food. And so, a final question. If you are doing work at home or in the lab, is music playing?

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: Music is not playing. So I use music to empower myself. And I, actually like, use music to get into the mood of a specific conversation. So I curate my music very well for empowerment, and so I do music first and then focus time in whatever I need to do. There's a lot of music I love, but different musics from different times.

Host: Yeah, and then if you change that slightly to nineties, R&B and hip hop, you'll have me the majority of the time.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: The world Michelle needs your joy the majority of the time. So I really do think so. I think that as, I repeat what I said before that what people don't know is that yes, you interview magnificent people, brilliant people, but present company excluded. I don't need to be there. But the truth is that you are a brilliant contributor yourself. You empower people and it, the impact of your work and the impact of your words are tremendous to the people you serve. And if there's a little girl out there that feels empowered by these two veterinarians, do it, because we're here to serve you.

Host: Yes, Portugal, Queens, New York, and everywhere in between. You can do it.

Marta Castelhano, DVM, MVSc: You can do it. You can do anything you want.

Host: Yes, Dr. Marta Castelhano, thank you so much for joining me. I, I feel empowered by having had this conversation with you, and I feel this way every time I talk to you, but I'm so glad you brought what you do and the Biobank and the legacies of your mentor and pets, out to the public. We appreciate you so much. Everyone listening, please share and like, subscribe on your favorite platform. We are so thrilled you joined us here on the Cornell Veterinary Podcast, and we will talk to you all soon. Thanks.