The Wall_Spring 2023_Issue 9

Fleur Granier-Deferre, (she/her), S9, talks about the promising ability of dogs to smell diseases in humans and the impact fullness of this discovery.

Dogs are known for their incredible sense of smell: they’ve been used in hunting, trained to sniff out bombs and drugs, and have assisted in search and rescue missions.They are equipped with over 100 million sensory receptors within their nasal cavity, whereas humans possess only around six million. Dogs also have a second olfactory system that not only allows them to pick up on physical smells but also enables them to detect pheromones, human emotions, and even the presence of storms.Their sense of smell is powerful enough to sniff out substances at concentrations of one part per trillion— that’s the equivalent of a single drop of liquid in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools!

the very scientist who was researching her: Daisy repeatedly bumped her head against the area where a cancerous tu mour was eventually located.. Dogs’ ability to detect the odour of cancer is believed to be linked to vola tile organic compounds

that can be detected in the headspace of the cells. Produced by malignant cells during tumour growth, these compounds have a distinct scent to dogs. And, now, it has even been discovered that dogs can detect Covid! A recent study showed that the Covid infection has an odour that specially trained dogs can rapidly, non-invasively detect with up to 94.3% sensitivity and up to 92% specificity.The dogs were shown to be able to detect the odour from asymptomatic individuals, as well as from those with two different strains of covid, with both high and low viral loads. Dogs are now being trained to detect malaria, potentially preventing the spread of this deadly disease, which, as Bill Gates has recently warned, poses a greater threat to humankind than global war.

But did you know that they

can also detect diseases?

Some dogs have been able

to accurately detect a typically undetectable odour in their owners, that of cancer, often long before their human com panions were diagnosed by a healthcare professional. Daisy, a very special dog, has sniffed out over 500 cases of cancer. She even detected a lump in

These are two illnesses for which ear ly detection is key to

proper treatment. Further research into dogs could be key to the future of human healthcare.

Artwork: Jake Beament, S9

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