Health Minister Steve Brine MO visited the Centre on Tuesday 13th February to meet the team and learn more about our life-saving work at Medical Detection Dogs.
During his visit Steve met with a client partnership, saw a demonstration of our Bio-Detection dogs at work and learnt about dogs’ exceptional sense of smell. Our specialist dogs are trained to detect cancer volatiles which can provide valuable information that will assist in the development of new ways to detect and diagnose cancer earlier.
Following his visit Steve said: “Science and medicine are now turning to the dogs to find out what they actually smell when they detect early stage cancer. Research has shown that machines are not nearly as sensitive as a dog’s nose. There are machines that can identify explosives, but dogs are still preferred over the machines, as they are far more accurate.
“The ‘e-nose’ for cancer will eventually be a reality, but for now, dogs are doing a near perfect job at detecting early stage cancer. I am hugely grateful to the team, both human and canine, for meeting with me today, and I wish them all the best as they continue to develop this very exciting work.”
Click on the video below to hear from Steve and our CEO Dr Claire Guest