Is there meaningful information contained within a person's breath?
The Pine Street Foundation is proving the answer to be a big "yes" with their team of Cancer Sniffing Dogs
×
The Pine Street Foundation is located inside of the Pine Street Clinic
in downtown San Anselmo, CA. It was founded to improve the lives of
people with cancer through extensive education and research efforts.
×
By using the most advanced scent detection source known on the planet: a
dog's nose, the Foundations latest project hopes to develop a early
detection ovarian cancer breathalyzer. The Foundations efforts and
findings have already received federal funding and international media
attention.
×
When the dog's hear it's time to "go to work" they are led by volunteer
professional trainers into a small monitored room where 5 matching
containers have been placed on the floor.
×
On "Go", the dogs sniff out the box's and indicate their choice of which contains cancer by sitting at it and looking back at the trainer.
×
One container houses a cancer breath sample while the other 4, house out breath samples from healthy individuals.
×
Volunteers have breathed out into this rtubes who have ovarian cancer.
×
These rTubes cool and condense exhaled breath samples.
A low temperature freezer stores the exhaled breath samples along with specialized air purification equipment which insures no matter who the volunteer, the background air each breaths is the same.
×
Dogs have to correctly indicate which station an ovarian cancer breath sample is placed 30 consecutive times.
×
Captain Jennings is a miniature poodle who is a hard worker with a great nose who was qualified to be on the team in record time
×
Project Directors film and document every session and record the results of each dogs right or wrong answers.
×
Raffi is a Portuguese Water dog, the same breed as the Obama Family now owns.
×
All dogs except for one are "career-change" dogs originally trained at Guide Dogs of Marin.
These dogs were more motivated by their sense of smell then their visual skills needed for guide dog service and are perfect sniffers for the Foundations needs.
×
The California foundation is working In partnership with The University
of Maine where breath samples are analyzed from these rTubes which hold
the breath. This research although heavily volunteer, is in need of
more funding. This is an East meets West dog friendly story that the
hope can save the lives of many people around the world.
×
The dogs in this case are not the one's being tested but are the one's testing the humans, as still "our best friend"
×
At the headquarters in San Anselmo, California
×
The foundation has received federal funding and international media coverage for their work thus far.
×
The Foundation still needs more donations to curve the cost of the rTubes and for further research to meet their goal.
×
That goal is the answer the question "Can dogs smell cancer in breath?"
×
The Trainers and Head Researcher at Pine Street Foundation.
×
