[Cagdu] FW: USA: Dog genes help guide scientists toward disease cures

Mon Oct 1 12:12:09 PDT 2007

Subject: USA: Dog genes help guide scientists toward disease cures

Dog genes help guide scientists toward disease cures

Richard Halstead
Marin Independent Journal

Article Launched:09/30/2007 03:41:09 PM PDT

For decades, Guide Dogs for the Blind has trained dogs
to assist the sightless, and now the San Rafael
nonprofit is working with government scientists on
research that could help identify the genes that make
dogs and humans susceptible to cancer and other
diseases.

Purebred dogs of the type that Guide Dogs uses are a
geneticist's dream. Because the dogs are highly inbred
and have well-documented genealogies, they can
greatly simplify the task of tracking down genetic
mutations that cause disease.

"It's a wonderful population for us to be able to
study," said Elaine Ostrander, chief of the cancer
genetics branch at the National Human Genome Research
Institute in Bethesda, Md.

Ostrander, who has been studying canine genetics for
the last 20 years, heads the laboratory that is
collaborating with Guide Dogs. The institute, which
is part of the National Institutes of Health,
participated in the international research effort that
identified all the approximately 20,000 to 25,000
genes in human DNA. Half of the research Ostrander's
lab does focuses on dogs. The other half is
concentrated on the human breast and prostate cancer.

Genetic researchers like Ostrander scrutinize the DNA
of humans and animals that have contracted the same
disease, searching for the genes they hold in
common. In the case of human cancer, hundreds of genes
have been identified, Ostrander said. The problem is
determining which of these genes are playing
the key role in causing the disease. That is where
dogs will prove so useful, Ostrander said.

"If you're trying to find the genes for a complex
disease like heart disease, cancer, epilepsy or
Addison's disease, it's really hard to do it just
studying
human families because there are so many genes out
there," Ostrander said.

But dogs are different, Ostrander said. "Within any
single breed - because those breeds survive from a
small number of founders and are closed populations
- there are probably only going to be one or two genes
that are important. It's a way for us to simplify the
complexity that we face."

Patti Van DeCoevering, veterinary director for Guide
Dogs, met Ostrander during an educational conference
in Florida several years ago where Ostrander was
lecturing on the canine genome. DeCoevering struck up
a conversation with Ostrander after the lecture about
Guide Dogs and the extensive amount of information
the organization keeps on its dogs.

"You could see her eyes light up when she realized
what we had," DeCoevering said.

Guide Dogs has maintained a computer data base
detailing the medical histories and behavioral traits
of its dogs for more than 10 years. The organization,
which was founded in 1942 to assist veterans blinded
in World War II, has pedigree information dating back
several decades, DeCoevering said.

Ostrander will have a bounty of DNA with which to
work. Because Guide Dogs envisioned the possibility of
this type of research, it has been storing blood
samples from its dogs for the last five years. Samples
from about 5,000 dogs are currently being stored at
the University of Missouri, DeCoevering said.

Ostrander said, "We can look at the DNA and the
complete life history of dogs who have sadly passed on
at this point. It gives us a terrific advantage in
doing our work."

This isn't the first time that Guide Dogs' canines
have played a role in improving human health. Some
dogs that proved unsuitable to be guide dogs after
being prepped for the program have been trained to
warn diabetics when their blood sugar falls
dangerously low. The dogs learn to detect the scent of
low
blood sugar.

And five dogs participated in a recent study that
demonstrated their ability to detect lung cancer in
the breath of cancer sufferers with 99 percent
accuracy.
The study was conducted by the Pine Street Foundation
based in San Anselmo.

Contact Richard Halstead via e-mail at
rhalstead at marinij. <mailto:rhalstead%40marinij.com> com

This article can be found at: 
http://www.marinij. <http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_7046687>
com/marin/ci_7046687

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