Jacquelyn Evans, PhD of the Ostrander Laboratory of NIH is doing research on gastric cancer in Tervurens and Belgian sheepdogs. The NIH lab and that of Ania Oberbauer recently announced that they are coordinating their resources to advance the study of gastric cancer in the Belgian Sheepdog and Belgian Tervuren. Dr. Ostrander is Chief of the Cancer Genetics and Comparative Genomics Branch at the National Institutes of Health and is taking the lead on the gastric carcinoma work begun by Dr. Elizabeth McNiel; Dr. Jacquelyn Evans, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Ostrander’s lab, is spearheading the effort. Dr. Oberbauer is a professor at the University of California Davis.  Teaming up with the gastric cancer study is Embark who, with explicit permission from owners who submit a Belgian for DNA analyses, will share that data with the Ostrander lab.

The Embark data can be directly incorporated into the ongoing gastric study. It is also possible for owners to submit their raw data from Embark, found under the Advanced section of their dog’s results, directly to Dr. Evans (jacquelyn.evans@nih.gov). However, we ask owners to also submit their dogs’ blood samples for the gastric cancer study to the Ostrander lab when possible.