The dogs learning to sniff out disease

Abstract

Veterinarian Cynthia Otto trains dogs to detect COVID-19 and other diseases. Cynthia Otto: Sniffing out diseasesHumans have long taken advantage of dogs' superior sense of smell. The 300 million scent receptors in a dog's nose are routinely used to detect bombs, drugs, firearms and people. But dogs are now being used experimentally to sniff out human disease. Cynthia Otto, a veterinarian and director of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, spoke to Nature about how sniffer dogs could help in improving medical diagnostics.