Zoobiquity: Species-Spanning Medicine — Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D. (AHS14)

Animals and humans get the same diseases, yet physicians and veterinarians do not often consult one another. Spontaneously-occurring diseases such as cancer, heart disease, obesity, and infection as well as psychiatric conditions including self-injury, compulsive grooming, sexual dysfunction and substance-seeking affect not only people but a broad range of animal species. An integrated, interdisciplinary approach using the latest in medical and veterinary science to understand physical and behavioral health can lead to novel insights, hypotheses, and innovative therapies. This species-spanning approach challenges academic institutions, clinical practitioners, pharmaceutical companies, and biotech firms to recognize comparative medicine as a translational science, bringing knowledge from the veterinary medicine to the human hospital bedside.