Can clinical trials on dogs and cats help people?

Can clinical trials on dogs and cats help people?

08/11/2016

Frankie is the third of 13 canines in the study—a clinical trial that's part of a growing push to develop new therapies for people by testing them in sick dogs and cats instead of lab rats or mice. Pets are a better model of human illnesses than rodents, advocates contend: They live in the same environments, sometimes eat the same food, and get many of the same diseases, particularly cancers, that we do. So, the thinking goes, they could hold the key to developing new therapies for humans at a fraction of the normal cost—and potentially yield a trove of new medicines for pets themselves.

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