Integrative Lifecourse and Genetic Analysis of Military Working Dogs
Abstract
During the first year of this three year project, we have made strong progress on the proposed aims. The major accomplishments have been in the following areas: creation of our military dog registry database, determination of the optimal protocols to convert clinical records from paper to electronic versions, establishing molecular genetic methodologies, and development of statistical methodologies for genomic analysis. Regarding the military dogs to be studied, we established a close working relationship with collaborators at the Daniel E. Holland Military Working Dog Hospital at Lackland AFB. We hired and placed in that location a veterinary technician who is responsible for acquisition of on-site data and biological materials. We developed multiple new methodologies capable of handling the diverse data types seen in the military working dog program. We acquired information on the breeding program that will allow us to focus in on the most informative dogs for our molecular studies. Most importantly, we conceived of and validated a novel statistical methodology to identify signal from noise in high throughput genetic or genomic data (which we call GIA). This success with GIA goes beyond our expectation and we anticipate it will result in a highly cited article and a widely used methodology; it will also improve our power to detect cancer-associated variation in our study. In addition to those planned activities, we identified other opportunities to acquire high value data and resources by establishing collaborations with other groups - mainly the US Joint Pathology Center (JPC), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) dog program, and the biomedical informatician and dog imaging specialist Dr. David Gutman at Emory University. The JPC collaboration provides us with cancer phenotype data. The greatest challenge has been in making progress while the institutional agreements were under negotiation (now completed, awaiting signatures).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA578222
Entities
People
- Kun Huang
Organizations
- Ohio State University