Dogs are still a man's bestfriend

PCD, or primary ciliary dyskinesia, is a rare disease that affect 1 in every 20,000. It produces motility defects in the microcilia, which leads to chronic respiratory infections. There are several mutations that are responsible for this disease, but they only explain about 40% of the cases. A European University has turned to studying dogs and their genome in order to explain the disease. Dogs and humans suffer from a variety of diseases with the same genetics origins, such as diabetes, cancer, and epilepsy. A new trean among research teams involves studying sick dogs in order to find how to help ill humans. This research helped the team identify about 15 mutations responsible for the disease that occur in about half of the cases. I thought this article really interesting because when you think of lab research, the most common animal that comes to mind is the mouse or the lab rat. It's amazing to see, though vastly different species,  how much we have in common with dogs, and how studying them can help understand our own diseases.