Department of Pathology
Professor
Biography
Dr. Allenspach is a clinician-scientist and has been employed as a faculty in academia for the last 20 years. Dr. Allenspach has a current H-index of 43 with over 5,700 citations and 230 publications. She has broad background in small animal internal medicine (Diplomate European College of Veterinary Internal Medicine DECVIM-CA) with a special emphasis on gastroenterology and oncology, and extensive post-graduate training in basic and applied immunology (Dr.Med.Vet., Ph.D.). Dr. Allenspach is currently funding and supervising the SMART Comparative Medicine Laboratory at UGA’s CVM, with Co-PI Dr. Jon Mochel. Her lab is working on the phenotypic and functional characterization of canine adult stem-cell-derived epithelial organoids in comparison to human and mouse organoids. Most recently, she has engaged in the in-depth study of patient-derived tumor organoids (PDOS) and their application to predict in vivo treatment responses in canine and human cancer. Dr. Allenspach’s latest efforts have resulted in the founding of a start-up company (3D Health Solutions, Inc.), which has the overall goal of commercializing assays for drug screening based on organoid methods in dogs and other animals. Her ultimate vision is to reduce the future need for in vivo use of health dogs and other animal models.
