How are dogs helping fight human disease today?

How are dogs helping fight human disease today?

According to this article from the AP, dog coats are dictated by the interactions between 3 genes, which have been isolated.

Complex interactions between genes can now be observed and monitored to see why and how they interact, and if they can be manipulated in the ways they interact.

However, these findings only apply to purebred dogs. Mutts remain a mystery to the science community, I imagine because it is easier to find what you're looking for when you know what you expect to come out of a pair.

According to the article, this research should help scientists to learn to pinpoint multiple gene interactions involved in diseases like cancer, heart disease, and obesity.

Read the article here

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Comment by Sarah C. on August 28, 2009 at 12:23pm: Dogs also have a lot of genetic "slip" in genes so we can look at a WIDE variety of differences in the same gene that can be tracked for a good long time.
Also they've ungone a lot of inbreeding that has resulted in some of the diseases we have, like epilepsy.
John, it is so good to know you are a nerd like me <3

Comment by John Wolff on August 28, 2009 at 12:11pm: There is tremendous interest in canine genomics. Dogs have the same genes we do -- in different places -- their litter sizes are much bigger than ours, generation time much shorter, there is a huge wealth of breeding and pedigree data on them, and you don't have to get them to sign as many consent forms to do research on them.
And sometimes I think they're smarter than we are, too.