DNA tests and Laboratories

[Mikael]

As I understand from an earlier topic on this subject, the DNA test for HD is mush more complex then the Dwarf DNA test, and will take mush more research, lab time and dogs (200)… and I think the price therefore is not so high compered to the Dwarf test…

But I understand it will not be easy to get 200 owners to pay 300 euro, especially when some has more then one dog, and it will not be possible for owners in some country’s to pay this neither…

What I’m trying to say is, I do not think any other lab will do or can do a DNA test for the CsW breed for less than 300 euro/dog… not today anyway… (if not the lab Mijke knows can do it for less)

But I think that Ina has find the right lab, as it already have a funtion HD DNA test for GSD, and work whit DNA tests for ED and epilepsy to…

I think we are to try to find a way to get funds, but I do not think that will be easy, unless the lab can help us whit that…

I do not know the price for normal HD x-ray in Germany, but in Sweden I think it is about 200 euro including the official result… therefore by Swedish standard a HD DNA test for 300 euro sounds reasonable...

Best regards / Mikael

If you are all having issues with paying that much to fund the research, why not try something like fundraisers to help pay? Hosting things like a dog walk where people pay an amount like $20 (whatever an equivalent for you would be) to participate is a great way to raise money like that. All you'd have to do is find a place to do it, throw a cheap lunch together, and explain to people why it's a good cause. You can also encourage participants to raise extra money on their own to help donate.

Also, would it be possible to take donations at dog shows? You could explain to people that the money goes towards genetic HD research.

There's no reason the money for the research has to be placed souly on the owners of the dogs. This type of research benefits EVERY dog breed, because all research has to start somewhere. I'm not sure how feasible all this would be for all of you (I know this type of thing is very common in the US, though) but I figured I'd throw it out there for you, just in case.

[Mikael]

Originally Posted by Vicky

If you are all having issues with paying that much to fund the research, why not try something like fundraisers to help pay? Hosting things like a dog walk where people pay an amount like $20 (whatever an equivalent for you would be) to participate is a great way to raise money like that. All you'd have to do is find a place to do it, throw a cheap lunch together, and explain to people why it's a good cause. You can also encourage participants to raise extra money on their own to help donate.

Also, would it be possible to take donations at dog shows? You could explain to people that the money goes towards genetic HD research.

There's no reason the money for the research has to be placed souly on the owners of the dogs. This type of research benefits EVERY dog breed, because all research has to start somewhere. I'm not sure how feasible all this would be for all of you (I know this type of thing is very common in the US, though) but I figured I'd throw it out there for you, just in case.

In Sweden we have about five CsV, and most people do not know that the breed exist at all, most of the people at the Swedish Kennel Club think it is not a recognized breed, and some insurance company´s will not insure are hybrid´s

I think it might work better whit a big breed like GSD... but the CsW breed is a very small and reare breed

But I did ask people here before if we should start a CsV fundation, for future blood lines... the answer I got, was that there was no money needed So maybe we can ask the clubs to pay

Or start a CsV fundation now fore future health problems and blood lines ???

Best regards / Mikael

Originally Posted by Mikael

In Sweden we have about five CsV, and most people do not know that the breed exist at all, most of the people at the Swedish Kennel Club think it is not a recognized breed, and some insurance company´s will not insure are hybrid´s

I think it might work better whit a big breed like GSD... but the CsW breed is a very small and reare breed

But I did ask people here before if we should start a CsV fundation, for future blood lines... the answer I got, was that there was no money needed So maybe we can ask the clubs to pay

Or start a CsV fundation now fore future health problems and blood lines ???

Best regards / Mikael

I don't think it necessarily needs to be a whole big organization or anything, just dog owners/lovers of any breed that want to give a little something to help research. People give donations all the time to help fund research for all sorts of diseases that face humans, I think people might be interested to help fund research for dogs as well. Just getting people together for one day to raise money wouldn't have to be a whole start of an organization or anything. But, I can see a problem if it's in a general population that is very spread out, this sort of thing works best in highly populated areas, like urban cities or suburbs, that's why I suggested hitting up people at dog shows.

All I'm saying, is it doesn't just have to be for CsV owners. It doesn't even have to be by people that know what the breed even IS, the fundraising could help spread awareness of the breed, as well!

[mijke]

Ina: There is a validated test for GSD
Mijke: • Is this the price of € 300 for an (already for CsW validated) real test?
Ina: The price for the 24 dogs is 7 Euros for the storage from the 200 on it is 300 per dog

And all the people who want to pay € 300 for each dog for research, what do they have to pay when the test is really validated?? (what is the price for GSD owners for the test?)
Or then the new test is for FREE for these owners??

Mijke: • Who is the owner of the blood sample? The owner? The group that manage the data? The lab?
Ina: The lab

Hmmmmm…. Personal I am never happy with such deals when a lab is a owner of a database….

Mijke: • And who can decide for what tests the blood is used in future?
Ina: The lab but you can say you don´t want your blood to be used for anything else

That is not the problem I mean….
All labs/university’s who are asking 4ml EDTA blood for a specific test are also collecting blood for themselves. And they use this for all kind of research.

But when an individual owner storage blood in a data base, this owner can every time decide by himself which test he want to do from that blood (in all kind of labs). And he can ask the storage lab to distillate DNA and send to another lab.

The same a group of owners of an DNA research data base can do the same. But they also can ask several labs to do research for a specific test because they have a lot of blood samples (and that is interesting for a lab)

BUT when a lab is an owner they can decidewhat they want to do with the blood! And in future it is possible that they do not want to send distelated DNA of such a group to an other lab for test or research.

Originally Posted by Mikael

As I understand from an earlier topic on this subject, the DNA test for HD is mush more complex then the Dwarf DNA test, and will take mush more research, lab time and dogs (200)… and I think the price therefore is not so high compered to the Dwarf test…

Maybe I did understand wrong, but I think this is not the price for a HD test! (Because there is yet not a HD test validated for CsW)
I think this price is only for research, so they can validate the test in future.

And of course when there ever will be such a HD test in future that makes that a owner do not have to make x-rays, then the price is reasonable

Originally Posted by Mikael

What I’m trying to say is, I do not think any other lab will do or can do a DNA test for the CsW breed for less than 300 euro/dog… not today anyway… (if not the lab Mijke knows can do it for less)

There will be not one lab that will do a DNA test for a disease for Free!
But there are labs that are doing research for free! (like the lab in Frence that is working on PRA test specific for CsW)
And only when they have a validated test for the breed owners have to pay for such a test.

[Mikael]

Originally Posted by mijke

Maybe I did understand wrong, but I think this is not the price for a HD test! (Because there is yet not a HD test validated for CsW)
I think this price is only for research, so they can validate the test in future.

And of course when there ever will be such a HD test in future that makes that a owner do not have to make x-rays, then the price is reasonable

No, I think you got it all right, it will be research the first 200 dogs and maybe more, if they not can find some short cut (resemblance from the GSD tests) to make it whit less individuals, as I understand that is why they wont 24 dogs to se if there is a resemblance to the DNA HD pattern on the two breeds

But if they need 200 dogs or more that is about all owners and breeders that are interested to do the HD DNA test today, and after that it will not be eny big money to earn for the lab, just a cople of tests per year, I think that is way they will demand money from the start ???

As I understan there is about 7000 CsW in the world, the number of GSD is probably way over 1´000´000 dogs, therefore I think that most labs that do HD DNA research for a small breed like the CsW will demand money from the start...

But if we can find a good lab that do HD DNA research and wont a small population to do research on, I will be very happy to pay less or the 300 euro after we knows that the DNA test will be valid and approved

But I think are chances are very small, and we will have to pay the 300 euro from the start if we can not find any funds...

But I agree, that we must be the one to own the data base and blood samples, if the lab wonts to do more research that might help are breed maybe we can send two blood samples from the start ? one for us and one for them ??? and mayby we can get a discount on are 300 euro in exchange ???

Best regards / Mikael

[Mikael]

Hello again

Just wonder how the results from a HD DNA test would look like ???

Is it just positive or negative, or can one see the degrease and risks in % ???

Can somebody link to a HD DNA test result from a GSD ???

Kindly regards / Mikael

[canislupus]

Hello all,
I called yesterday the president of the fund " Gesellschaft für kynologische Forschung"
The president told me that they had this year only 60.000€ to spend, that she thinks next year it will be less and that there are so many institutions who want to get some money from them.
So we have no chamce to get any money from them. Our breed is too small and healthy. And our HD-project is not important for many people...

She also told me, that she does not trust in a test based on just 200 blood samples. For the german shepherd test they had thousands of blood samples.

@Mijke: what do you think about this? I am not experienced with validation of those tests. Is she right? How can we get to know if the test will be really good or if there will be more or less wrong results. (before we have to pay lots of money...)

She told me to think about spending so much money on a maybe not very good test or maybe better talking to some Experts for genetics and work together with them.

so, what´s the right way?
Tanja

[michaelundinaeichhorn]

I am not Mijke but I read publications in vet-magazins about it and tried to find out more since almost a year.

Originally Posted by canislupus

She also told me, that she does not trust in a test based on just 200 blood samples. For the german shepherd test they had thousands of blood samples.

@Mijke: what do you think about this? I am not experienced with validation of those tests. Is she right? How can we get to know if the test will be really good or if there will be more or less wrong results. (before we have to pay lots of money...)

When they did the GSH-test there wasn´t any test workin at all, when you have a test you can see by much smaller numbers if there is a correlation, to find out if there is a correlation they need the 24 dogs, if there isn´t any correlation they anyway won´t carry on. The 24 dogs will cost only 7 Euros each. If we stop there and wait how things show in future we still would have the possibility to carry on later.
The most important question is how much the test results correlate with the breeding results, to know that we would need to know how long the GSH do select with this test and if the HD-statistics show a signific decrease of HD,

Originally Posted by canislupus

She told me to think about spending so much money on a maybe not very good test or maybe better talking to some Experts for genetics and work together with them.

The test was validated by the genetic institute of a veterinary university by experts on dog-genetics.

Originally Posted by canislupus

so, what´s the right way?
Tanja

I think this is the point when everybody who knows about labs that do databases or knows about genetic projects on dogs should try to find out about the conditions of those labs.
We should start with a database as soon as possible and keep informed about all research projects.
I also think we should keep in touch with the HD-test in Hannover and find out how to raise funds for research. And we can only do all of this on an international basis. Research on dog genetics goes on worldwide.
So it makes sense to now collect people and dogs that are willing to cooperate. If we have a database with all informations research projects do need we could start at once. To build up an international database will take a lot of time.

What seems to be not that clear is even if tests like that in Hannover do work and show a signific benefit, the validation of this kind of test takes 1-2 years. If we build up a new group of people and a new database and so on for every test of interest we all won´t live when the first test can be started.
It makes most sense to build up a database in the best lab we can find for this and have everything ready when there is a project of interest.

Ina

[mijke]

Originally Posted by canislupus

@Mijke: what do you think about this? I am not experienced with validation of those tests. Is she right? How can we get to know if the test will be really good or if there will be more or less wrong results. (before we have to pay lots of money...)

Hi Tanja,
For me it is more easier to ex-plain in Dutch! But I ‘ll try to explain it simple in English language.

Personal I think something else is mentioned with “validation” between the DNA dwarfism test and de DNA HD test.

When genetic specialist are doing research for a genetic mutation it costs years.
I’ll try to explain how it did work with the dwarfism test:

The specialists did start to compare DNA of dwarfs, their parents (= carriers), brothers, sisters with other dogs (which they did know they were free). This research did take years and a lot of blood samples! And in this case the genetic specialist could locate the mutation! And they were lucky that the mutation for dwarfism is “single“ recessive mutation. (I don’t know the correct translation)
When they did know where to look for this dwarfism gen mutation, they could compare the mutated gen of the GSH with a SWH who was a proven carrier (parent of a dwarf) and then the test was also validated for SWH.

After that I only had to find only 1 CsW dwarf or 1 proven parent of a dwarf to validate the dwarfism test for CsW breed. (because the mutation was "single" already known and theyonlydid have to compare)

But for a DNA HD test it will be maybe more complicated! Because a lot of genetic specialist expect that HD is not caused by a “single” recessive mutation but will have “multi factor” causes.
Maybe there is not yet found an exact location of a gen mutation. And they have found only the differences in DNA between HD A and HD D/E dogs.

That also explains why they first need 24 CsW’s to see if the differences are the same. And when that is a fact, later on they can compare a lot more CsW’s with and without HD to find the exact differences. And so in future they maybe can find the DNA mutations that causes HD. But that will take a lot of time!!

But maybe I am wrong! So please Ina, correct me when there are other reasons why they need more Csw’s for validation.