
Though prostate cancer is the second-highest cause of cancer death in men, early biomarker detection methods – specifically, the prostate-specific antigen screening test – lack sensitivity and specificity. We need to reduce false positives and false negatives – but how? The answer may lie in our four-legged friends. Trained canines have been shown to reliably detect and diagnose cancer by smell. Granted, dogs in the lab would be a logistical nightmare and not feasible for mass testing – but that’s where researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) come in.