Zoobiquity by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz

way for this technique to be used in human beings.
    Veterinary gene chasers are currently looking at DNA for molecular clues to canine lymphoma, bladder cancer, and brain cancer. And here’s why genes are relevant: picture a Great Dane looming over a Chihuahua or a Saint Bernard sniffing a pug. Members of
Canis lupus familiaris
,although belonging to the same species, can look and act extremely different from one another. But those desirable differences—traits honed over centuries of selective breeding and codified in the American Kennel Club Blue Book—carry an ironic and sometimes tragic Trojan horse. AsKerstin Lindblad-Toh, the MIT molecular biologist who led the canine genome-mapping project, explained to me, breeding for desirable traits inadvertently selects for and transmits other mutations, some of which can cause cancer.
    The way German families from the Black Forest region are susceptible to kidney and retinal cancers, or Ashkenazi Jews to breast, ovarian, and colon cancers, certain dog breeds are prone to certain cancers.German shepherds, for example, can develop a kind of heritable kidney tumor. As the veterinary oncologists Melissa Paoloni and Chand Khanna explain in a review published in
Nature Reviews Cancer
, the genetic mutation that causes the dog cancer is similar to the one that leads to Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome in people—which makes them vulnerable to kidney cancer, too. Salukis, descended from the royal dogs of ancient Egypt, are among the oldest breeds. Their chromosomal legacy codes for their lean, regal elegance but also for a one-in-three chance of developing hemangiosarcoma, a highly aggressive tumor of the heart, liver, and spleen occasionally seen by human cardiologists, hepatologists, and oncologists. ‖
    Paoloni and Khanna note that chow chows have higher-than-usual rates of gastric carcinoma and melanoma. Boxers lead the list for developing mast-cell cancer as well as brain tumors. Bladder cancer disproportionately strikes Scottish terriers. Histiocytic sarcoma (an extremelycomplicated cancer that hides out in locations like the spleen) favors flat-coated retrievers and Bernese mountain dogs.
    But noticing where cancer
isn’t
can be as instructive as noticing where it
is
. As Paoloni and Khanna point out, remarkably (although so far still inexplicably), two breeds of dogs seem to get cancer less often than the others: beagles and dachsunds. Like the professional lactators who rarely get breast cancer, these extra-healthy dog breeds may point to behaviors or physiology that offer cancer protection.
    Despite all the possibilities that lie in comparative oncology, only a fraction of human doctors ever think beyond the mouse. As a UCLA oncologist colleague confirmed to me, even the smartest human cancer researchers
never
talk about naturally occurring animal cancers.
    And while initiatives like the COP are slowly changing that, zoobiquitous collaborations between physicians and veterinarians are, at present, all too rare. If we could change this, the world of cancer care and cancer research might look quite different. I learned this for myself when I heard the story of a fortuitous meeting of two oncologists, one a physician, the other a veterinarian, that resulted in a radical new treatment for melanoma.
    In many ways, the dinner crowd at New York’s Princeton Club that autumn evening in 1999 was like any other. Blue blazers and regimental ties. Silvering temples. Smart skirts and pearls and pumps. Conversation probably tumbled around the Y2K bug, an exciting new HBO series called
The Sopranos
, and gas prices that were climbing to a steep $1.40 per gallon after hovering below the dollar mark for most of the preceding summer. Silently surveying it all, as it had for decades, was the cold metal eye of a bronze tiger on the wall.
    But at one table, the banter was anything but ordinary. Around the starched white tablecloth, ice clinking in the water glasses, sat a dozen or so scientists