Hair of the dog: Project uses dog genomics to advance human health

Finnish developer and provider of Bio-IT solutions for research and biomedicine, MediSapiens has joined a newly established genomic research project focusing on comparing dog and human genomes to advance human health.

The project was established by professor Hannes Lohi at the University of Helsinki and professors Juha Kere and Carsten Daub at Karolinska Institute. It aims to update the dog genome map and use the information to model various diseases in humans.

 “Following the advances of the Functional Annotation of Mammalian genome project (FANTOM), in which our colleagues at Karolinska Institute have been involved, our project will make a substantial contribution in updating the dog genetic map”, said project leader Hannes Lohi. “This will help to identify disease-associated genetic alterations and enable their efficient comparison with the human genome. The project also builds on substantial previous research and a large dog biobank, and supports other ongoing initiatives, such as the international 10,000 Dog Genomes Project.”

Henrik Edgren CSO of MediSapiens said: “We are excited about the important advances this project will make. We’re dedicated to participate in scientific initiatives which have the potential to make significant improvements in our understanding of health and disease, and eventually contribute to improvements in human healthcare. This project has the potential to make a vast impact.”