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ALAConline DNA
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This was sent in October 2007. |
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ALAConline
ADDITIONAL PROGRAM DURING NATIONAL SPECIALTY WEEK On Friday October 26 representatives from Mars Veterinary, formerly known as Waltham Canine Gene Collection, will be available to collect blood samples on Lhasas for their DNA bank. Some of you may have already participated in this collection but this will be a concerted effort to ensure that a number of representative samples from the breed become a part of this DNA bank. Mars Veterinary is interested in establishing this comprehensive DNA bank to support their own research and canine genetic research throughout the US.A Mars Veterinary representative will also be available on Tuesday October 23 to give information and answer questions. She will make blood collection kits available to those who will not be able to participate on Friday. Mars Waltham would like as wide a variety of sampling as possible. The samples already collected (over 13,000 of them) have been shared and used to support the work of many of the key researchers in Canine Genetics including Elaine Ostrander at the National Institute of Health and Kerstin Lin dblad-Toh at the Broad Institute. The articles below discuss how this technology was used to find what these researchers believe to be the primary gene making little dogs little.
http://www.sciencem
http://www.emaxheal You can view the new Mars Veterinary website at http://www.marsveteAccording to the Mars Veterinary representative who will be coming to Houston, t here are several advantages to participating in this collection. First, we ensure that well bred Lhasas that truly represent the breed are collected for the future of the breed and genetic research. Two, if at some point an issue or disease crops up where we need to target research, Mars Veterinary will share their bank of Lhasa samples with a researcher identified by ALAC who is working on the disease. This would be minus ALL IDENTIFIERS of individual dogs but could be very useful as a bank of anonymous Lhasa DNA samples. Three, Mars will bank a portion of the sample for the owner so the owner can privately contact the lab with the bar code number on their particular dog in order to authorize sharing a sample with a particular research group. The owner would then be responsible for providing the researcher with information on that particular dog. With the rate that canine genetic research is progressing-There is no cost to ALAC for this and there is no fee for the collection or for storing the samples. Unfortunately, this collection does require a blood draw in order to get the amount and the quality of DNA to support numerous research projects and not just one. We thought that Friday would be the best day since the majority of the entry will be done showing by lunchtime on Friday. Again, Mars Veterinary will have a veterinarian available on Friday October 26 for these no obligation blood draws. And a Mars Veterinary representative will be available on Tuesday October 23 to give information and answer questions. She will make blood collection kits available to those who will not be able to participate on Friday. They would like as wide a variety of sampling as possible. If you have any questions that can't wait until next week, please contact Leslie Baumann at 219-462-9520 (cell number is 219-395-4956) or the Mars representative: Martine Huslig, MS, CGCCertified Genetic Counselor DNA Collections Coordinator Mars Veterinary Formerly Waltham® Canine Gene Collection US based: Austin, TX (512) 858-7939 cell (858) 442-3791 fax (512) 233-2495 mhuslig@k9genes. |