Dogs are a Cure’s Best Friend
“Dogs, which have strong genetic similarities with humans, get many of the same types of cancers as people and have similar responses to cancer-fighting drugs.” Successful personalized treatment for our pets’ cancer may lead us to provide successful personalized treatment in humans. How would enrolling animal subjects enable faster response and treatment? (Think back to the Feero et al. article “Genomics, Health Care, and Society,” and its section about Consent and Confidentiality.) If your dog were diagnosed with cancer, would you enroll him/her in a cancer treatment trial? Do you think this could be an important part of the emerging era of personalized medicine that the Human Genome Project had hoped to achieve?
Article and embedded video: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203315804577207252135374064.html?mod=rss_Health
(Thank you to your fellow classmate for this article!)
