DNA programs establish and make use of DNA information across the animals of a given population. Depending on the starting point and the motivation behind it, generatio realises a wide range of objectives – from long-term parentage assurance for breed clubs, through decentralised, open programs, to programs built around scientific research questions.
Depending on the starting point and objective, generatio offers three program concepts – from the tightly organised breed-club population, through decentralised, open programs, to organising animals for a specific research question.
Breed club programs focus on the long-term assurance of identity and parentage. In addition, they cover trait testing (hereditary diseases and characteristics) tailored to the requirements of the respective breed. Complete programs use the modules offspring registration, breeding-animal registration/typing and parentage assessment.
Our decentralised, open DNA programs are designed for owners and breeders who do not belong to a breed club but still want to bring their animal into a population – with no head office and no organisers. The most important applications are parentage assessment and mate search: once parent animals are enrolled in the same open program, their profiles are available for the assessment or search.
Programs built around scientific questions help organise the participating animals independently of location and association membership, involve the owners and make the resulting data available to participants. They are based on the Animal Trust Center internet platform: owners get access to their animals’ online records and can contribute directly to the study via questionnaires.
DNA programs draw on several basic modules that can be combined depending on the program’s objective.
At dog breed clubs, all puppies are sampled with our GOcards at the litter inspection as part of microchipping. Puppy samples can be tested immediately or archived for later use.
Registering the current breeding animals via reference samples, and the DNA identities derived from them, is usually the starting point of an ongoing DNA program. These animals form the founder population from which all descendants are DNA-secured. Some breed clubs continue breeding-animal registration on a spot-check basis during an ongoing program – for example for animals presented to a conformation judge or veterinarian.
Most breed clubs require mandatory DNA tests for breeding admission – which ones depends on the breed club and the breed. In programs with offspring registration, the archived sample can be used for this, so no new sample needs to be taken.
The „diary“ section of the online animal record offers various input forms that build an ongoing chronicle tied to the individual animal – for example for general and specific health or medical data.
A selection of the DNA programs generatio runs for breed clubs, research projects and open populations.
generatio’s DNA programs coordinate the otherwise isolated efforts of individual animal owners into largely self-organising „communities“ that build and use a shared body of data that would otherwise never have become available.