On November 14th 2024 Dr. Cathryn Mellersh, Head of the Canine Genetics Centre, gave an online presentation to our supporters and stakeholders. Cathryn started her presentation by summarising the areas of research that the CGC has been involved with over the last twelve months, including details of the impressive list of peer-reviewed publications that the team has produced.
Inherited eye diseases, epilepsy and intervertebral disc disease continue to be areas of intense research for the CGC, with the interests of a wide variety of breeds being represented across these different programmes of work.
Cathryn’s presentation was recorded, and you can watch/listen to it below or via our YouTube channel.
Presentation Overview
Cathryn spent a while outlining ‘other news’ items from 2024, including the Canine Health Lifetime Achievement that she was awarded in July, and the team’s attendance at the 12th International Conference on Canine and Feline Genetics and Genomics Conference in Helsinki in June.
Cathryn went onto to highlight the team’s attendance at other events over the course of the year, including Crufts, Beagle Welfare’s 45th Anniversary Fun Day, the Kennel Club International Agility Festival to collect data and the London Big Relay, to raise funds for CGC and in particular our epilepsy research. It’s been a very busy year!
In her previous presentation, in January of this year, Cathryn highlighted the funding challenges that the CGC was facing and reached out to Clubs and individuals for financial support to keep the CGC team together while longer-term funding was sought. In her presentation last night Cathryn reported on how the fundraising had gone and was able to demonstrate the overwhelming support that the global dog-breeders and and dog-owners had provided over the last 10 months. Cathryn spent a long time thanking everyone who had supported the CGC this year. She thanks everyone who had made a financial donation but equally important where those who had sent messages of support for the CGC and expressed their gratitude for everything the CGC does to improve the health of our dogs.
Cathryn thanked Ben Stanbury (The Identity Bureau) for designing the CGC’s new logo, numerous people who had provided her with advice over the year, Our Dogs newspaper for highlighting the CGC’s financial situation and, last but not least, the entire CGC team who has worked hard all year to keep on top of both the research and the fundraising efforts.
Cathryn ended her presentation by discussing the future of the CGC. She was able to announce an exciting new partnership with Wisdom Panel that will provide support for three staff members over three years as well as genetic data from Wisdom Panel’s vast dataset of breed and non-breed dogs to support for the CGC’s IVDD research.
However, Cathryn was also very keen to emphasise that donations from the CGC’s grassroots stakeholders will remain important for the foreseeable future. She reiterated her promise from earlier in the year that she wouldn’t again ask Breed Clubs for donations on the same scale as she requested in January. Rather, she would instead like to encourage individuals, as well as Clubs, to commit to regular giving to support the CGC. She reminded listeners that gift aid can be claimed on all donations from UK taxpayers, and that modest, but regular, donations provide predictable income that will enable the CGC to plan for the future.
Cathryn ended her presentation by introducing the Friends of CGC campaign. For the price of little more than the cost of a coffee or bag of fancy dog treats each month, supporters can become a Friend of the CGC. As a token of thanks they will receive a cute lapel pin and also the opportunity to nominate someone that they know for an exciting new award, that will be sponsored by Cambridge’s own canine genetic testing service, Canine Genetic Testing.
