Researchers use Poodle to Decipher Canine Genome

Lead Researcher's Pet Project
By Earl Lane
Associatted Press WASHINGTON BUREAU
September 26, 2003

Washington - First it was J. Craig Venter who raised a few eyebrows by donating his own DNA to be sequenced as part of his privately funded project to decode the human genome.

Now Venter's pet, a male standard poodle named Shadow, joins his master in the annals of science as donor of the DNA used to produce a draft genetic blueprint of the dog.

Ewen Kirkness of The Institute for Genomic Research, the lead author on the dog study, said Venter's pet "comes to the institute most days of the week. It sits around here. It seemed like an obvious choice." He said any dog, purebred or mongrel, would have sufficed for the team's purposes.

"If you were to choose from all the dogs in the world, you would probably choose your own dog," Kirkness said.

Venter, who was traveling yesterday, could not be reached for comment. He formerly headed the institute and now is president of The Center for the Advancement of Genomics, the other organization involved in the dog sequencing effort. The work was funded by the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation.

Venter has acknowledged his DNA was one of five samples used in the privately funded human sequencing effort. That team announced its results simultaneously in 2000 with a publicly funded project.

Venter later said he started taking cholesterol-lowering drugs after the sequencing showed he had a gene associated with abnormal fat metabolism. No word on whether his dog is going to be visiting the vet as a result of its genome work-up.