TALKING BUSINESS
Reaching the 10-year anniversary of founding your charity, opening a new state-of-the-art centre, and demonstrating your ground-breaking work for Her Majesty the Queen are milestones that many firms can only dream of achieving. However, for Milton Keynes-based Medical Detection Dogs, 2018 and 2019 proved to be a monumental couple of years, and is a far cry from the early days when the charity was operating out of founder Dr Claire Guest’s kitchen. CEO and chief scientific officer Claire founded Medical
Detection Dogs in 2008 alongside partner Dr John Church, with the aim of training dogs to save lives by detecting illness through their amazing sense of smell. The charity does this in two ways – through bio-detection dogs and medical alert assistant dogs. This has led to Medical Detection Dogs becoming the only charity in the UK to train bio-detection dogs and, for some of the diseases the dogs are trained for, the only charity in the world providing
PICTURES CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:
Dr Claire Guest
Bio-detection dog Kizzy hard at work
Dr Claire Guest with co-founder Dr John Church and a puppy
A bio-detection puppy on the run!
this service. For the medical alert assistant dogs, they are trained to detect conditions that no other assistance charities provide for. The charity is at the forefront of research into the fight
against diseases like cancer, parkinson’s disease, malaria and even specific bacteria. The bio-detection dogs are trained to find the odour of diseases, in samples such as urine, breath and swabs; the dog’s nose is the best bio- sensor known to man, and through the charity’s training, they are able to use this unique ability for scientific advancement. Research conducted in 2014 indicated that their dogs could detect tiny traces (around one part per trillion – the equivalent of one teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic sized swimming pools) of the odour created by different diseases. This pioneering work is focused on understanding how
these highly trained disease detectors could expand the world of diagnosis through the recognition of volatiles. Claire and her team are confident that dogs will be able to help scientists and medics develop faster and cheaper ways to detect diseases. It was perhaps a twist of fate that meant that one of Claire’s own dogs, Daisy, started to behave differently towards her one day – nudging at Claire insistently. Claire was unnerved by this and went to the doctor. Claire was diagnosed with a very deep-seated cancer, something she would almost certainly not have found for many years without Daisy’s warning and would probably not have survived. The medical alert assistance dogs are trained to detect
minute changes in an individual’s personal odour triggered by their disease and alerts them to an impending medical event. Through the incredible training provided by the organisation, the dogs help people regain their confidence and independence when living with conditions like Type 1 diabetes, PoTS and severe allergies. They save their charges lives all day every day, and often throughout the night too. Medical Detection Dogs have a no kennel policy and all the dogs go home and put their paws up each evening. Operating from Claire’s home in the early days, Medical
Detection Dogs has gone from strength to strength over the past 11 years, with the charity moving to Great Horwood in 2010. In 2019, on the same site, the team were proud to move into a new state of the art premises which allows them to train even more dogs, hold events, run puppy classes, and offer clients private areas for when they feel unwell. They now have a small fundraising team, marketing and events staff, a small team managing their volunteers, a HR team among others. The charity receives no government funding and to train each medical alert assistance dog costs £29,000. Facing scepticism about the integrity and validity of their
work has been a challenge that has been hard-earned to overcome. People would dismiss the idea of dogs detecting disease out of hand, or others would question whether it was tangible in the real world. But as time has gone on, and many studies and published papers have shown that not only is there no doubt they can do it, but that they have high success rates and often more effective than current diagnostic tools, Medical Detection Dogs rarely face scepticism. They have also developed eminent partners and supporters along the way who are great advocates; there is a quantum physicist at MIT who is learning from and working with their dogs. The future is looking extremely bright for this innovative
and arguably life-changing organisation. There has been a recent study on prostate cancer, as well as parkinson’s disease, and the team would like to further establish dogs as a discovery platform for the diagnosis of all human disease. Their dogs have won various awards, including one which has the PDSA medal (dog-equivalent of the George Cross.) Medical Detection Dogs hold regular welcome days, to
encourage people to come and see their amazing work in person, with a demonstration by their bio detection dogs and a talk about the life-changing impact their medical alert assistance dogs have on the clients they save every day.
Visit:
www.medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk APRIL/MAY 2020 inbusiness 23
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