Health security

Could military working dogs detect COVID in humans? The Army is working to find out

A joint research effort between the U.S. Army and the University of Pennsylvania is hoping to train dogs to develop pinpoint detection of COVID-19 biomarkers in humans.

Researchers from the university previously trained dogs to successfully detect both diabetes and ovarian cancer. Given present circumstances, shifting focus to the coronavirus was a no-brainer.

“I called up the research partner in my branch who I work most closely with on dogs,” Michele Maughan, a researcher at the Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center, said in a release. “And said to her, ‘We keep saying we need to find a way for dogs to detect COVID-19, let’s do this!”

Maughan then reached out to the director of Penn Vet’s Working Dog Center, Cynthia Otto, who quickly endorsed the partnership. An additional phone call to Patrick Nolan, a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran and former military working dog trainer, got the ball rolling, and by May 26, just months after proposing the idea, the first dogs entered training.

Nolan, who now owns a training center for working dogs in Maryland, enthusiastically supplied 10 working dogs to participate in the six- to nine-week program.