Dog DNA has role in developing new therapies for human cancers

Using genomic analysis to study cancer in dogs can help develop new therapies for humans with cancer, according to a proof-of-concept study underway. Pure-breed dogs, whose genetics have been standardized by hundreds of years of human intervention, provide highly predictable genetic models from which specific drugs are matched to the molecular profiles of human patients. While there are, relatively, many genetic differences among humans with the same type of cancer, there are far fewer genetic differences among dogs of the same breed, making it vastly easier to identify and study the genes driving canine cancers.