Geneticists from the Canine Genetics Centre, along with veterinary cardiologists and neurologists from the Queen’s Veterinary School Hospital, are becoming increasingly concerned by reports of sudden, unexpected deaths in young Labrador Retrievers – often occurring during rest or sleep – in dogs that appeared otherwise healthy. Continue reading
Earlier this week, Dr. Cathryn Mellersh gave an online presentation where she highlighted a few of the significant milestones the Canine Genetics Centre has reached, and shared an important message about the future. We hope you joined us but if not, you can watch the presentation below and read more about what we are aiming to achieve. Continue reading
The Canine Genetics Centre (CGC) is enormously proud of its publication record. Since the year 2000 the CGC team members have published well over 100 peer-reviewed papers, the majority in open-access scientific journals with global readership. However we are often asked “why publish our results and give away our secrets”, so this week we are going to answer that very question. Continue reading
The Canine Genetics Centre is excited to be resuming its research into primary glaucoma in dogs. This article explains what glaucoma is, and what we are doing to resume our investigations of this painful and blinding canine disease. Continue reading
Since our last update, the CGC Idiopathic Epilepsy (IE) project has had a great response to our call for samples. A huge thank you to everyone who has sent us swabs or completed our epilepsy questionnaire, especially those of you who have been organising big batches of cheek swab DNA collection kits! Continue reading
In January of this year we published our research into an inherited eye disease called retinopathy with vitamin E deficiency (RVED) in English Cocker Spaniels. You may have heard of this disease before under a different name, perhaps central progressive retinal atrophy or retinal pigment epithelial dystrophy. Continue reading
The Canine Genetics Centre has worked closely with many breeds over the years, to investigate inherited disorders that represent a challenge to their health. In the next of our series, we focus on the Gordon Setter, a breed that the CGC started to work alongside over 15 years ago, when a new and emerging form of late onset progressive retinal atrophy first became apparent in this breed. Continue reading
April 25th is National DNA Day and commemorates the day in 1953 when James Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins and co-workers published the structure of DNA in the journal Nature. Continue reading
The trustees of the Jean Lanning Foundation are delighted to announce a major grant to the Canine Genetics Centre (CGC) at Cambridge University to fund exciting new research.
Dr Cathryn Mellersh has linked up with Dr Alex Cagan to collaborate on a joint proposal entitled “Decoding health: The Domestic Dog as a Model for Understanding Human Disease.” Continue reading
The Canine Genetics Centre has a successful track record investigating the genetic basis of inherited eye diseases in dogs. However, some eye diseases have been more challenging to investigate than others, and cataracts have been no exception. Many breeds are predisposed to develop inherited forms of cataracts, but their inheritance is generally more complex than for other eye diseases, such as progressive retinal atrophy, so identifying underlying genetic risk factors is harder. Continue reading
