"My question is... Are there any other organizations who are researching Dwarfism, or who have
shown an interest in researching Dwarfism, who might benefit from your research? I fully well, understand why you would want to "protect" your work until it is published. But, it has occurred to me that a big research facility may be able to get more funding & have a number of researchers working on this enabling
them to come up with answers much sooner than one person can.
Or, is this something that Equine Research just don't feel deserves the time, money & effort? "
No research facitility whether private or connected with a school is going to to do any research on something like this unless they know they can make money on it or recognition for its discovery. That does not even mention the money these labs would want to cover costs for that research, or all the samples that would need to be donated, because they are not getting mine!
I dont think you realize no research is done in these facilities for free. Who do you think pays for all of the costs???? It is paid for by the people that want the answers. The facilities ask for donations whether public or private, grants, government funding etc, the facilitiy does NOT pay for it out of their own pocket. Why do you think there are telethons on TV for certain human diseases??? Special colored ribbon fund raisers, ie breast cancer. There is not a research firm out there with Billions of money in the bank waiting to spend it on some research of some disease in the CHANCE they could profit from it. Someone else is going to take the financial responsibility and risk NOT the research firm.
Also there is noone in this breed knocking research facilities doors down with money wanting this work done and answers to this problem. I dont see the members of either registry jumping up and down with large amounts of money in hand willing to give it to any research facility. And large amounts meaning 10s of thousands closer to 100s of thousands of dollars, not a couple thousand that has been donated to UK or TAMU. The amount donated so far will pay for about 10 primer sets of potential microsatellite or gene sequences, that is it. That doesnt include the other chemicals needed to even use them, or the machine run time to analize the results, and those primers are NOT the genes with the answers to the dwarfism, very simply primers are things used to amplify or read DNA.
Right now there is another student in my lab working on a color gene to try and find it and make a test. It is very hush hush, why, because of potential that some other lab will beat this lab to the answer and the potential of recogniton and money. Infact I have donated some Mini samples to be in this research that I feel are a specific color. I have also donated some samples when the research was being done for the Silver dapple gene for non-breed specific confirmation of the test.
I have spent a very long time with my work, I know the pedigrees and its problems, I know the breed history, I know the different types of dwarfs seen, I have the samples. This is my work, I am not going to give up all my work to give it to some lab that only cares about making money on the results and not what all comes with those results, meaning what does this breed do with the answers. I for one appreciate those concerns. No lab with making money on their mind is going to care at all. Anyways, no lab is interested, if they were they would be knocking on our door. We have not shown that there is any money in it to be made.
Now that I am here at Gluck I am involved in a lot of potential things that will help me find the answers, things I cant disclose due to confidentiality with genetic software developers to be part of pilot studies and this is ONLY because of my samples that I have and how knowledgeable I am about the breed. Gluck is relying on it for some really big applications in research. I just cant say anything. That is why I havent said anything s onoone would get their hopes up if the pilot project doesnt find anything.
Remember we are not talking about humans we are talking about horses, pets, and the genetic diseases we see in them. Horses are something of a sidenote in the overall picture of genetic research since mice and other lab animals are much more suited for genetic research that can influence the work done in humans. And in the overall picture of horse genetic research, we as the Miniature breed are considered a fly on the butt of the horse in most (but not all) research labs that work in equine genetics only.
So I really think some Miniature people think we as a breed have a bigger influence than we really do. We do not have any million dollar races, we do not have any million dollar titles. We do not have even any 50,000 dollar awards, ie futurity or performance related awards, but there many other money driven breeds that exist that do, and they are the ones getting looked at by research labs much more than us.
John
