Why we have set up this web page: We believe in the "Pay it Forward" concept and have been blessed throughout our lives by the animals who have shared their time with us. As a breeder, I feel a need to give back through rescue, and feline health programs. Although there are many, many diseases that affect feline health throughout the world, one of the most insidious and devastating is Feline Infectious Peritonitis, also known as FIP. This disease affects cats of all breeds and usually takes the very young or the old and weak.

There is no cure, there are no effective vaccines or treatments for FIP. Moreover, there isn't even a method to definitively diagnose FIP except a post-mortem biopsy. My hope is that with enough financial support and attention within the feline community we will one day have an effective diagnostic method and treatment to save the lives of our precious cats. Please support these projects and help us raise funds so research can continue~!

***I will gladly list individual contributors and provide links on this page to responsible breeders who support this effort***

The Bria Fund - general fund for FIP Research

The project below is supported through the Winn Feline Foundation. Donations will be submitted on behalf of the donors who contribute through the link at the bottom of this page.

We need to raise a minimum of $500.00 to be listed as a sponsor for this project!!

Identification of the cellular receptor for feline corona viruses

Feline corona viruses (FCoVs) are well-known among veterinarians and owners for the devastating and lethal disease they cause: feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). There is presently neither adequate vaccine to prevent nor any therapy to treat this dramatic infection. A tremendous bottleneck that has precluded study of feline corona viruses has been the lack of a suitable laboratory cell culture system for propagating the viruses and investigating their infection characteristics. Remarkably, all we presently know about FCoV comes from work with some rare hybrid viruses that occasionally arise when feline and canine corona viruses simultaneously infect a cat or dog. The sole reason for this is that available feline culture cells cannot be infected by the ‘real’ FCoV, because they do not carry on their surface the molecule (‘receptor’) that the virus needs for its entry. The investigators aim to develop the necessary susceptible cells. They will artificially synthesize the viral protein that normally binds to the receptor. Using this protein, they will fish the receptor out from a homogenate of natural target cells, i.e. feline intestinal epithelial cells. The identity of the receptor will then be determined based on its molecular mass properties. This will allow them to obtain the gene encoding the receptor, which they can clone from the target cells. Finally, this gene will be introduced into culture cells in the laboratory, which will thereby become capable of infection by FCoVs. This will open the field for studying these viruses.

Donation:

The "Donate" button will take you to a stand alone paypal donation account established for the sole purpose of collecting donations for the research and educational projects which we support and are outlined above. In addition, a portion of each CahabaCat cat or kitten sale will be donated to this fund.

If you prefer to donate individually toward this research you can click through the "Bria Fund" link above and contribute directly through their site.  

Statements showing donations received and forwarded to the Winn Foundation will be available to the individual contributors upon request.

A special Thank You to the individuals and breeders who have contributed to this fund raising effort: