University of Minnesota Equine Genetics and Genomics Laboratory

01/10/2025

Do you have a horse that has been diagnosed with PPID?

We could use your help as we continue to ENROLL additional PPID horses that are being treated with pergolide for an ongoing genetic risk study. Enjoy this video that summarizes the project and consider enrolling your horse to help us answer these very important questions regarding PPID disease risk.

Visit our website to learn more about participation requirements and steps to enroll:

https://z.umn.edu/pergolidestudy

12/22/2024

With the time away from work and school this holiday season, please take a moment to enroll your Doberman in the Disappearing Dobermans Project. In case you missed it, we are embarking on an unprecedented effort to change the health of our dogs and our breed, for the better. Sadly, in a study of over 5,000 dogs, from more than 179 breeds, the Doberman had the shortest average lifespan. This heartbreaking statistic is our call to action, please join our effort!

Enrolling your dog is easy and will make a huge impact on the future of the Doberman breed. We cannot do this alone, dedicated owners, breeders, and donors are critical to our success. Please go to https://z.umn.edu/DDPSurveyChecklist to view our checklist of information to gather before enrolling. When you're ready, fill out the survey at the following link: https://z.umn.edu/DisappearingDobermanProject

12/19/2024

This holiday season we are thankful for our healthy Dobermans, but we know far too many friends who will be spending the holidays without their precious dogs this year. The Disappearing Doberman Project is hoping to make more holiday seasons for Dobermans, but we need your help. We are still accepting dogs to be enrolled in both the lifetime study and the early impact study. https://z.umn.edu/DisappearingDobermanProject

We are also accepting donations to the project; all donations are tax deductible! Please visit https://z.umn.edu/DisappearingDobe for more information.

12/13/2024

We are very proud to announce that one of our Master's students, Joy Stock, just succesfully defended her thesis! This is the culmination of so many years of hard work and dedication. Joy's thesis was titled "Genetic Exploration of Exercise Associated Sudden Death in Racehorses" and she is planning to attend veterinary school as the next step in her career.

We are so proud of you Joy!🙌

12/12/2024

Here at EGGL you have probably noticed an increase in research including our favorite companions-dogs! There are many reasons why researching canine genetics is important. For one, we love our dogs and we want them to be happy and healthy. Understanding the genetics underlying their health and wellness can help us keep them healthy or treat them when they get sick. Dogs are also an important model organism. They have very similar diseases to humans that occur naturally and they live in the exact same environments that we do. In some cases this makes them a more important model organism than many lab animals!

This post features a photo of one of our amazing canine resarchers, PhD candidate Emma Hilby, that is working on multiple projects related to service dog genetics.

🐾

12/10/2024

Did you know that up to 30% of horses above the age of 15 will be diagnosed with Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction (PPID, formerly known as equine cushing's syndrome) in their lifetime? It is important to recongize that this disease can manifest in many different ways in our older horses. A myriad of clinical signs associated with PPID can include a long shaggy hair coat that fails to shed, weight loss, muscle atrophy, increased drinking (polydipsia) and increased urination (polyuria), behavior changes, recurrent infections, decreased fertility and a risk of laminitis. We are currently investigating the underlying genetics associated with PPID in horses as well as genetic factors involved in treatment response to pergolide, the drug most commonly used to treat affected horses.

Please consider learning more about our study and enrolling your horse if they meet enrollment criteria. We need your help to be able to answer important questions regarding PPID disease risk and treatment response affecting many of our beloved equine seniors! ❤🐴❤

https://z.umn.edu/pergolidestudy

12/03/2024

Proud to share this exciting funding secured by Dr. Durward Akhurst!! The long term goals of these pilot projects are to identify markers that can be used to predict exercise associated sudden death risk so that the frequency of these fatalities in Thoroughbred racehorses can be reduced. 👏

HISA’s Exercise-Associated Sudden Death (EASD) Working Group, formed in October 2023 to advance research initiatives and collaborate with industry leaders on the critical issue of EASD, today announced the funding of two groundbreaking research studies. The first aims to identify biomarker differences between healthy Thoroughbred racehorses and those that succumb to EASD, while the second is a monitoring pilot program utilizing wearable devices to gather valuable data on EASD risk factors.

Learn more: https://hisaus.org/news/hisa-exercise-associated-sudden-death-working-group-announces-funding-of-groundbreaking-research-studies

11/20/2024

PPID is a very common neuroendocrine disease in the older horse population. We are currently studying the genetics underlying disease risk in horses as well as drug response with pergolide therapy. If you have a horse with PPID- please consider enrolling in our genetic study as we work hard to learn more about this very important disease in horses. The link below has information regarding enrollment steps:

https://z.umn.edu/pergolidestudy

This graphic depicts the overall steps occuring in the disease process. PPID involves the loss of neurons which decreases dopamine levels and leads to unregulated growth of cells in the pars intermedia portion of the pituitary gland. Treatment usually involves administration of pergolide, a dopamine receptor agonist, that increases dopamine activity and helps to reduce clinical signs in affected horses.

*Image created in Biorender

11/18/2024

The Disappearing Doberman Project is still enrolling dogs for our study! One of the main diseases we are researching is Hypothyroidism in the Doberman Pinscher. Hypothyroidism is when a dog has insufficient levels of thyroid hormone due to an underactive thyroid gland. Dobermans are 17 times more likely to develop hypothyroidism in their lifetime compared to other similar dog breeds. Read more about this disease below.

If you want to learn more about the project and how to enroll, go to https://z.umn.edu/DisappearingDobermanProject

11/13/2024

The Disappearing Doberman Project is still enrolling dogs for our study! One of the main diseases we are researching is Cervical Vertebral Instability (CVI), or 'Wobblers' in the Doberman Pinscher. Dogs with CVI display with “ataxic” or wobbly gait, which worsens with time. This is caused by compression of the spinal cord either because the vertebral canal is too narrow or because of a bulging disk between the vertebrae. Read more about this disease below.

If you want to learn more about the project and how to enroll, go to https://z.umn.edu/DisappearingDobermanProject

11/08/2024

How well do you know your horse’s pedigree? It can be fun to look back a couple of generations and find some famous names, but pedigrees also serve an important role in breeding decisions and genetic research. Horses with well performing ancestors are often predicted to perform better because they’ve inherited well performing genetics. Pedigrees are also used to calculate inbreeding coefficients which are used in conjunction with ancestry to make breeding decisions. In genetic research pedigrees can be analyzed to determine inheritance patterns of a disease or trait of interest. Pedigrees make up an important aspect of genetic studies and they have been used to aid the discovery of many important genetic variants.

Image generated with ChatGPT 😀

11/06/2024

The Disappearing Doberman Project is still enrolling dogs for our study! One of the main diseases we are researching is Dilated Cardiomyopathy in the Doberman Pinscher. As many as 58% of Dobermans will develop DCM in their lifetime. Cardiomyopathy can present in different ways: one is characterized by the enlargement of the ventricles of the heart, weakening the walls of the heart muscle causing impaired contraction of the heart’s ventricles. Other dogs present with arrhythmias (i.e., irregular heartbeats) including ventricular premature contractions (VPCs) with little to no evidence of heart dilation. Read more about DCM and how the four identified genes play a role in disease devolpment below.

If you want to learn more about the project and how to enroll, go to https://z.umn.edu/DisappearingDobermanProject

11/04/2024

We are saddened to hear about the death of Jayarebe following the 2024 Breeders' Cup. Our heartfelt condolences go out to everyone who worked closely with him and cared for him throughout his career.

Horses like Jayarebe are incredible athletes, and unfortunately, exercise-associated sudden death (EASD) is a rare but devastating event. EASD refers to sudden, unexpected death that occurs during or shortly after exercise. The challenge to preventing EASD is that most horses show no warning signs and are healthy prior to the event. Many of these horses are suspected to have developed an irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia) that leads to collapse and death.

Our research is focused on identifying risk factors for EASD so that we can work towards reducing the frequency of EASD. We have ongoing studies investigating if we can use electrocardiograms (ECGs) and genetics to identify horses that are at high risk of developing EASD. By studying the heart function and performance metrics of racehorses like Jayarebe, we hope to reduce the number of EASD related deaths in the future.

To find out more about our research and see how you can help, please check out our website by following the link to the Akhurst lab website on the left hand side of this page.

10/31/2024

The Disappearing Doberman Project is still enrolling dogs for our study! One of the main diseases we are researching is Hepatitis, or liver disease, in the Doberman Pinscher. Hepatitis affects up to twenty percent of Dobermans during their lifetime, but can often be managed through diet and medications if caught early on in the disease process. Read more about this disease below.

If you want to learn more about the project and how to enroll, go to https://z.umn.edu/DisappearingDobermanProject

10/23/2024

Did you know that up to 30% of aged horses may be diagnosed with Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction (PPID, also known as equine Cushing’s) in their lifetime? This disease brings many challenges with senior horse care to both horse owners and veterinarians. Researchers at the University of Minnesota and University of Florida are motivated to better understand this disease through investigating the genetics associated with PPID risk and pergolide response in horses.

If you have a horse being treated for PPID we could use your help! In order to properly answer the genetic questions surrounding disease risk and drug response, we are continuing to enroll horses with PPID (diagnosed by a veterinarian) that are being treated with pergolide. Please check out our website that has information regarding the goals of the study as well as enrollment information to see if your horse is eligible. We are excited about this project and its potential impact to improve quality of life in many senior horses!

https://z.umn.edu/pergolidestudy

10/21/2024

Our very own Dr. Sian Durward-Akhurst and Dr. Lauren Hughes (along with Dr. Alex Armstrong, Anatomic Pathology) attended the Translational Research Immersion Program for post-doc fellows and early career faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this past week. Dr. Durward-Akhurst also shared her experience with the group through a panel discussion focused on growing a funded research program!

The conference focuses on many important aspects of professional development including mentoring, persistence and resilience in research, collaborative science, obtaining research funding, study design, statistics, grant writing and more. It was a great opportunity to network with so many brilliant clinician scientists from vet schools all over the US! The future of veterinary medicine and veterinary research is so bright. We are excited they are bringing all they learned back to the EGGL team and UMN. ⭐️



University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine Research

10/01/2024

We are pleased to share the funding announcement for a USDA NIFA Blueprint grant!

With funding from the USDA, a multi-university initiative paves the way for the future of animal genetics.

08/14/2024

Summer is coming to a close and that means we now have to say goodbye to our hardworking summer scholars. We were lucky to have these three hardworking students working on a variety of metabolomic and equine cardiac genetic projects this summer. They recently presented their research at the American College of Veterinary Medical Colleges Veterinary Scholars Symposium in Saint Paul, MN!

We are so proud of them and will be featuring some of their exciting research in upcoming posts so stay tuned to learn about their individual projects!