Health-Hack Dot Com

This weekend, I was speaking with Kerstin Lindblad-Toh of MIT’s Broad Institute. Kerstin is a fascinating person who has been working at the forefront of various gene-mapping projects for the last several years.

When we first met, she was working on the Human Genome Project, later she was one of the leaders on the project to map the genome of the mouse. Currently she runs the recently completed Dog Genome Sequencing Project [the Broad Institute]. We had a really interesting conversation about what’s happining with this project since their paper was published in Nature last month (Genome sequence, comparative analysis and haplotype structure of the domestic dog, December ‘05), and how everyday people can help further their research.

According to Kerstin, all genes present in the human genome are present in dogs, but with roughly one-fifth the complexity. Since all domestic dogs diverged from one species, the Grey Wolf, 30,000 years ago, dog genes have not become burdened with too many “noise” genes yet. In fact, it was the Dog Genome Sequencing Project that was able to pinpoint man’s domestication of dog (or, as Kerstin says, it may be dog who chose to cohabit with man) to that date; previously there was only an accepted range of between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago.

Additionally, many of the diseases that are the worst scourges of dogkind also exist in humans. Bone Cancer is one example. Those working on the Dog Genome believe that by studying the genetic causes and implications of these disorders in dogs, with their much simpler genetic makeup, cures can be found relatively quickly and with important implications for human medicine.

Kerstin and her fellow researchers hope to help cure these diseases with the help of the public. They are asking owners of purebred dogs, healthy or suffering from:

• osteosarcoma
• hemangiosarcoma
• lymphoma
• mammary tumors
• mast cell tumors
• melanoma

to visit http://www.dogdna.org [The Broad Institute] to learn how you can donate DNA samples of your beloved pooch. While the research will benefit all dogs (and people) they are requesting only Purebred DNA at this time, please.

For those interested, the specific dog whose genome was sequenced is a female boxer named Tasha, who now lives as a happy recluse in the midwest.

Caveat: I am neither a molecular biologist, nor an expert in genetics, genomics, cultural anthropology, or industrial cheese fabrication. Any mistakes in this article are due to my deficiencies, not those of Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, the Dog Genome Sequencing Project, The Broad Institute, MIT, science in general, or the multiverse itself.

Digg this story

Technorati Tags: genetics, genome, genomics , dog, canine, cancer, DNA