From: "Eric Clark" 
Date: May 16, 2011 10:46:51 AM EDT

Hello Colleagues, 

Did you happen to see the Chemical & Engineering News (May 9, 2011, p 
56) article regarding the cancer-sniffing dog?   According C&EN, this 
amazing dog can correctly identify positive colorectal cancer from a 
patient's fecal specimen with 97% accuracy.  As far as service animal 
jobs go, this one must be considered by dogs to be the epitome of all 
the sniffing jobs, leaving drug, explosive, and mercury-sniffing in a 
distant 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place.  

The next step for the researchers is to identify the compound that's 
unique to cancer.  Perhaps this dog could also serve as a GC detector by 
sniffing what comes off of the chromatography column - the correct 
fraction being when the dog's tail wags.  But I don't believe using a GC 
dog-detector is something research labs presently do do.   

Eric 

Eric Clark, MS, CCHO, CHMM 
Safety & Compliance Officer 
Los Angeles County Public Health Laboratory