Thanks to your funding support – the 99 Lives Project has had some major successes!
The 99 Lives Cat Genome Sequencing Initiative continues to expand in participants and cat genomes! Approximately 40 different research institutions, zoological parks, pet food companies and animal health companies are contributing to the 99 Lives Project. We have genomes from over 200 domestic cats now – twice the original 99 Lives goal! Many wild felid genomes are included as well. We think we have been successful with over 20 different genetic projects!
We have two goals in 2019 for the 99 Lives Project – your support is needed!
1) The first goal is to raise ~$2,000 - $5,000 per project to validate, confirm and publish (Open Access) the DNA variants we have identified that may cause inherited diseases in different breeds. We think we have been successful with the 99 Lives Project – now we need to prove it! Testing and proving DNA variants is now more labor and reagent intensive than genome sequencing – thus validation costs more money! We have 10 active projects and would like to raise ~$50,000.
2) The second goal for the 99 Lives Project in 2019 is to have at least one cat from every cat breed and each wild felid species represented in the 99 Lives Project. The cost of genome sequencing has continued to drop! To produce the same quality data (30x genome coverage) as the beginning of the 99 Lives Project, the sequencing and analyses costs are now only $1500 per cat. For the 24 cat breeds not represented – we need ~$36,000 USD and ~$11,000 for the wild felid species.
More details about the projects for the 99 Lives Cat Genome Sequencing Initiative can be found on our website:
http://felinegenetics.missouri.edu/99lives
Cats Rule! – Thank you for your support!