14 DAY TRIAL // Like many other animals, dogs too can suffer from several types of cancer. One of these types of tumor in particular is extremely aggressive, infecting dogs when they reproduce, bite, lick or simply tough each other. A recent study has just succeeded in making this disease even stranger.
According to Elizabeth Murchison, who is a geneticist at the University of Cambridge, this cancer traces its genetic origins to a dog ancestor that lived with primitive humans 11,000 years ago. For all intents and purposes, this tumor is a living fossil, NPR reports. It is currently very widespread in the developing world, particularly among free-roaming dogs.
One of the first carriers for this cancer was a hybrid creature between a dog and a wolf that is closely related to the modern Alaskan malamute, the researchers argue in a paper published in the January 23 issue of the journal Science. Some half a millennium ago, the disease was able to spread across oceans to all continents.
Scientists hope to use these results to gain a deeper understanding on how this mysterious type of cancer developed and evolved. They say that the data could also be used to determine how human cancer cells evade the immune system as they spread throughout the body.