Comparative Oncology | 60 Minutes Archive

Name: Comparative Oncology | 60 Minutes Archive
Uploaded: 2026-03-21T13:02:44.000Z
Duration: 13 min 57 s
Channel: 60 Minutes

60 MinutesMarch 21, 202613m

Topics6

Introduction to Comparative Oncology0:02 Collecting Dog DNA Samples at Dog Shows0:31 Osteosarcoma in Dogs and Humans4:00 Listeria Immunotherapy Trials6:00 Brain Cancer Trials and Patient Stories10:34 Reflections and Ongoing Impact13:01

In a Nutshell

Comparative oncology leverages naturally occurring cancers in dogs—which mirror human ones like osteosarcoma, lymphoma, melanoma, and glioblastoma—to accelerate treatments via shared genes and environments, as studied by NIH and UPenn researchers funded by the Cancer Moonshot Initiative. Dog shows provide DNA samples revealing breed-specific cancer risks, while trials using Listeria-based immunotherapy extended survival in dogs like golden retriever Sandy and advanced to human trials, shrinking recurrent osteosarcoma in patient Christy Gomes. Brain cancer trials pairing dogs like boxer Otto with humans like Julie Hinsath demonstrate identical tumor pathology and immune responses, promising faster drug development than mouse models.

AI-Generated Notes

These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.

If you've ever lost a dog to disease, it may well have been cancer. Some 4 million dogs in the US are diagnosed with it every year. Often the same kinds of cancers humans get. We share many of the same genes with our canine companions. For cancer research, that's an opportunity scientists are trying to make the most of. It's called comparative oncology. Now funded in part by the White House's Cancer Moonshot Initiative, doctors and scientists are studying naturally developing cancers, mostly in dogs, and using what they learn to speed potential treatments to them and us.

A dog show might seem like an odd place to conduct cancer research. But this summer in Norwalk, Connecticut, that's where scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were swabbing and collecting DNA samples from all sorts of breeds. They've been doing this for nearly 30 years and have collected about 40,000 samples so far. Every few weeks, they're at a dog show. Leading the team is Elaine Ostrander, a senior geneticist at the NIH.

I always thought the National Institutes of Health study human diseases. Why is there scientists at the NIH studying dogs? We are studying human disease and we're doing it through dogs. And so dogs live in our world. They get all the same diseases we do. They eat our food. They're exposed to the same environmental pollutants, but they also have all the same genes that we do. And they have mutations in those genes that make them susceptible to everything you and I get. Whether it's diabetes or cancer or neuromuscular diseases, everything humans get, dogs get.

Ostrander says it's easier to study genes in dogs than humans because for the last 200 years they've been bred to emphasize specific traits. That's why they have all these distinct noses and tails and sizes from Great Danes to Chihuahua. Before Victorian times, dogs were pretty much the same. There was some variation from fossil and archaeological records. But almost all the variation you see running around in the rings today happened in the last 200 years. So that means it's probably going to be a really small number of genes responsible for most of the major differences. It turns out just one gene determines if a dog has cream colored hair or black. Other genes determine long hair or short.

Ostrander's team at the NIH has discovered some physical traits in dogs like ear position hold surprising clues about human health.

This was a study looking at prick ears versus floppy ears and that's due to a mutation in one gene called MSRB3. Just a mutation in one gene makes the difference between pointy ears and floppy ears. But what's really interesting about this story is that when this gene is perturbed or more dramatically mutated in humans, we get a form of deafness.

Some of the most promising genetic research in dogs involves cancer. Some breeds get certain types of cancers more often, making it easier for researchers to locate some of the genes responsible. Scottish terriers, for instance, are about 20 times more likely to get bladder cancer than the average mixed breed dog.

Sign in to read the full notes

Get access to AI-generated notes, topic timestamps, and more.

Comparative Oncology | 60 Minutes Archive

Introduction to Comparative Oncology00:02

Collecting Dog DNA Samples at Dog Shows00:31

Sign in to read the full notes