Narrator: This is Science Today. The most common cancer in dogs is non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system that also affects over 60 thousand Americans each year. Researchers have developed a new peptide that binds to the surface of lymphoma cells, which shows promise as a targeted imaging and therapeutic agent. Dr. Kit Lam is chief of hematology oncology at the University of California, Davis Medical Center and says this can benefit humans and dogs.

Lam: Basically, we have the molecule, we identify can also not just bind to human lymphoma, it can also bind to dog lymphoma. We've showed that to happen already. So, we're going to actually apply the same agent, the same molecule and inject it into the dogs to see if it does go to the dog lymphoma. And in the vet school here, they see about five or six new lymphoma patients per week, so there are plenty of dogs with cancer around we can test. If we can image a dog, if we can show that it works in the dog in terms of therapeutic effects that means there's a very good chance it will work in humans.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.