Next February 03 at 12 am it will take place the seminar "Pet dogs, citizen science and the complex genetics of behavior"  by Elinor Karlsson from Vertebrate Genomics Group, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Cambridge, USA.

Abstract

Pet dogs are an unparalleled genetic model for studying both behavior and disease. Over thousands of years, dogs have adapted to survive, and thrive, in an environment shared with humans, with dramatic changes in behavior, reproduction, and diet. With the pet dog population numbering in the millions, large-scale genomic studies with the statistical power to find genetic variants underlying polygenic traits are feasible.
We have developed a citizen-science based approach to dog genetics that welcomes any dog, regardless of breed ancestry. In its first 3 years, Darwin’s Ark (DarwinsArk.org) has enrolled more than 22,000 dogs, and their owners have cumulatively answered nearly 2.5 million survey questions. The first genomewide association studies, with 1500 DNA-sequenced dogs, finds genetic changes significantly associated with physical, behavioral, and food related traits, giving us new insight into complex traits and diseases seen in both humans and dogs.