Jurassic Docs

Reported June 2006

PITTSBURGH (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Think you have nothing in common with a Tyrannosaurus rex or animals from the Jurassic era? Think again. A first-of-its-kind program combines med students, paleontologists, and cutting-edge technology ... And the program's founders say doctors of tomorrow will be better ... if they study dinosaurs to uncover prehistoric medical links between the present and the very distant past.

What do dinosaurs have in common with people today? More than you might think! Fossil technicians process dinosaur bones to find out. With the use of medical physics like a CT scan of a dinosaur bone, paleontologists find themselves light-years ahead.

It's a non-invasive way to see what earlier researchers have only been able to guess.

Carnegie Museum of Natural History paleontologist Chris Beard, Ph.D., says by studying the evolution of prehistoric animals, today's medical students can understand the origins of some common medical problems.

"This is, as far as we know, the oldest evidence of cancer in the fossil record," he tells Ivanhoe of a softball-sized tumor in a 150-million-year-old dinosaur bone.

First-year med student Katherin Peperzak says, "The first thing I thought was, 'Wow! I didn't realize cancer was that old.'"

Paleontologists learned this is a special kind of cancer called osteosarcoma that, in humans, can develop during a teenage growth spurt.

Beard says these are examples that med students are unlikely to forget. "I think that it'll make 'em better physicians just in the sense of being able to diagnose a potential osteosarcoma at an early stage," he says. "They'll be more ready to look out for it, just knowing and being exposed to this dramatic example in the past." ...Mysteries from the past, unraveled by research and delicate work in the present.

Paleontologists say they've also gained invaluable insight during their partnership with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. For example, the discovery of the osteosarcoma in the dinosaur bone strengthens the idea that dinosaurs grew quickly, more like birds and mammals do instead of how reptiles grow.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Chris Beard, Ph.D.
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
(412) 622-3131
cmnhweb@CarnegieMNH.org

For more information about the intersection of medicine and physics, contact:

Ben Stein
American Institute of Physics
College Park, MD
(301) 209-3090
bstein@aip.org

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