Expertise Center Animal Genetics
Within the Expertise Center Animal Genetics at the Faculty of Veterinary medicine we study hereditary diseases in dogs and cats. Purebred dogs harbor hereditary diseases in high frequency. Many of these diseases closely resemble human diseases, which makes them excellent natural models to study causes of human hereditary disease.
New treatments for hereditary diseases relevant to both animals and humans, including gene therapy, can first be applied in veterinary patients before clinical application. By genome-wide associations studies and whole genome sequencing of well-characterised canine and feline patients we identify new mutations in a variety of diseases, including: congenital heart diseases, congenital urogenital and vessel disease, neoplasia, metabolic diseases, neurological disorders, immunological diseases as well as behavioral traits.
Equipment
- DNA database of ~30,000 DNA samples of well characterised canine and feline diseases;
- Biobank with blood and tissues from a variety of hereditary diseases in dogs and cats;
- Veterinary clinic for phenotypic classification of dogs (CT, MRI, routine lab, ultrasound etc);
- Canine research facility for pre-clinical studies.
Services
You are … a medical doctor, human geneticist, basic scientist or bio-informatician.
You want ... knowledge on the presence of your disease of interest in dogs and cats and status of the genetic research on this specific disease.
You want… to investigate whether mutations you have identified in human patients are similar to what we find in dogs in cats, for example to explore possibilities for pre-clinical studies.
We are willing to help you!
Contact
or ecgg@uu.nl