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The day of the designer dog |
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Future home
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Written by Peter Warren
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Sunday, 23 July 2000 |
Published Sunday Herald
First there was the Human Genome Project and now there is the Doggy DNA
Database, a US research project intended to pass on to man’s best
friend the benefits of our genetic breakthroughs.
Research that, according to scientists working on the database at the
University of California, will result in designer dogs ready for
walkies but with some of the more irritating traits associated with
particular breeds ironed out.
“With this research we can change dog’s behaviour,” said Dr Danika
Metallinos, a veterinary geneticist working on the project. “The
behavioural problems associated with many dogs are inherited and there
are people who are very interested in modifying that behaviour.”
Work that could produce some potentially worrying results for humanity
as research as already indicated the existence of a domestication gene
in dogs, valued as a desirable attribute due to this successive
generations of domestic pets now differ considerably from their wild
relatives.
Dog-breed bores may dispute the attractions of developing the canine
equivalent of the robot women in the 60s cult film ‘The Stepford Wives’
who carried out every whim of their male masters, but for many a
Yorkshire Terrier without the yap or a Mastiff without the malice would
be seen as a definite bonus.
But before the Kennel Club begins a stampede to join the anti-genetic
modification lobby it is only fair to point out that many of the
defects the team hope to iron out have been caused by man as many a
snuffling, bandy-legged bulldog will testify to.
“Our main aim is to have all of the dogs within a particular dog breed
healthy,” said Metallinos. “We can’t do anything for bull-dogs because
their problems are physical and due to their facial characteristics,
but we can remove the ailments that affect particular pure breeds.”
Meaning the Red Setter’s tendency to suffer from sudden fatal fits, the
Alsatian’s hip problems or the Doberman’s ironic susceptibility to Van
Willebrand’s disease, a condition which means that the classic guard
dog can often bleed to death, could become footnotes in dog-breeding
history.
The eventually aim of the work is to create a ‘virtual canine catalogue of all dogs.
The system works by analysing nuclear DNA samples taken from particular
animals, this gives the combined genetic code of both a dog’s parents
and then digitising the results.
By cross-referencing that information against code taken from the
parent itself, sub-sets of genetic information can be isolated so the
bloodline delivering a particular genetic tendency can be identified.
It is then hoped that similar comparisons between the DNA of healthy
and unhealthy dogs in the same families would pin-point the faulty
genes.
“We would then be able to identify carriers and stop them from breeding
together. So that over time we would be able to eliminate genetic
weaknesses,” said Metallinos.
Funded with a £200,000 grant from the American Kennel Club, it will
come as no surprise that the database will also be used to prove canine
paternity suits to prevent unscrupulous dog-breeders claiming a more
aristocratic canine ancestry for the animals they are selling than is
the case.
Comparing DNA from the parents should rapidly eliminate any pretender
to a dynastic dog-basket according to the team, who will also be
working to build breed blueprints.
A tracking of canine desire that will almost certainly reveal where
some dogs have strayed from the arranged marriages engineered for them
by their breeders.
But as well as sorting out just whose leads had become romantically
entwined, the database will also be used to address some more serious
scientific questions, such as whether the selective breeding of dogs
has shrunk the gene pool of the species.
A question the UCL database will look at by taking over 200 samples
wild dogs around the world including Alaskan wolves, Australian
dingoes, Carolina dogs, Korean Jindo dogs and the quaintly named New
Guinea singing dogs, a breed which literally yodel in the jungle.
Work that may help put new life into our old dogs according to Niels Pedersen, another team member.
“If the collective diversity among all of the registered breeds is
still equal to that of the ancient dogs it will make it a lot easier to
restore genetic vigour to troubled breeds,” said Pedersen.
“The question is how much genetic diversity was there in dogs before pure breeds began about a century ago?”
And if all goes according to plan, over-laying the mass of genetic
information the team aim to collect could even yield the orgins of the
Grand Doggy of them all, the first dog to stagger into the light of the
campfire around 80,000 years ago, 76,000 years before the cat made it
to the hearth.
Though not quite Jurassic Bark it is a creature the team hope to be able to put some flesh on.
“It’s still very much in debate whether dogs are closely related to
wolves, and it is more likely that dogs evolved from a definite
sub-species of wolf,” said Alison Schaffer, one of the project’s
researchers, who would not comment on whether the team were considering
naming such a sub-species the ‘Stepford Wolf’.
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