A few years ago I did a lot of work on mitochondrial DNA. This is the DNA that is inherited matrilineally - that is - the female passes it on to her sons and daughters but only the daughters then pass it on to the next generation. Setting aside the physiological importance of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), it is also important from a historical perspective as it allows us to examine an individual and group them by their mtDNA haplotype, as this haplotype remains relatively unchan

Without in any way belittling or demeaning those that struggle daily with substance abuse issues, I feel that I have to start this post with an Alcoholics Anonymous type confession - I was once a Pedigree Analyst. As a preface, this is a bit more of a personal post, so if you were hoping (expecting) something of a more technical nature, feel free to move on. For those that are happy to indulge, I was one of 'those guys' who believed that the pedigree held the answer, and by a

The DVD for the 2011 Pedigree, Genetics and Performance Conference is now available to order. You can get a copy by clicking here. For those that were not at the Conference or didn't hear about it, the Conference featured speakers from around the world talking about Thoroughbred pedigrees, the advancements in genomics as it relates to performance and some other performance related tools that help identify elite racehorse talent. It is a good DVD, especially for a Xmas present

Genomic Predictors of Trainability - While this study is related to human's we found it interesting nonetheless as it has been a long term study. In particular of interest was the findings that "A genomic predictor score based on the number of favorable alleles carried at 21 single nucleotide polymorphisms appears to be able to identify low and high training response classes that differ by at least threefold." To read the study click here #Trainability #Genomics