Old Dogs and New Tricks: How Dog Genetics Informs Human Health
Elaine A. Ostrander is chief of the Cancer Genetics and Comparative Genomics Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She did her postdoctoral training at Harvard and Berkeley, beginning the dog genome project in 1991. Since moving to NIH in 2004, Dr. Ostrander’s lab has focused on advancing canine genomics and finding genes for breed-specific traits. Dr. Ostrander has published over 285 papers and articles and won multiple awards.
In the last few centuries subpopulations of dogs have developed into closed populations as a result of selection for behavior and appearance-related traits. In her Athenaeum talk, Ostrander will discuss recent advances in the canine genome project and reveal genes for cancer and morphologic traits including body size, leg length and skull shape and also address how pet dogs advance human health.