Welcome back to new day.
You know so many of us.
Think of our furry friends as family members.
It's one of the driving forces behind a
massive research project on aging in dogs.
Researchers hope the data that they're
collecting now could one day help
doggies live longer and healthier lives.
I spoke with UW professor Matt Kaber
line from the Dog Aging project.
The Dog Aging Project really
has two primary goals.
One is to understand what are
the most important genetic and
environmental factors that influence
healthy aging in pet dogs and the
other is to actually carry out a
clinical trial to test whether or
not a drug called rapamycin can
actually slow the biological aging
process and dogs and and thereby
increase healthy lifespan in pet dogs.
Oh my gosh, that'll make
so many dog owners so happy
if that becomes the case.
Speaking of which are?
Are you a dog lover? Why?
Why did you decide to get involved
in this specific project?
Yeah I am. I'm a dog person.
I've I've had dogs my entire life.
I have one dog now.
His name is Dobby,
he's a 11 year old German
Shepherd who I I I love dearly.
How long have you been gathering
researching this this project?
So the dog aging project really sprang out
of an earlier project that my colleague
here at the University of Washington,
Daniel Promislow and our Chief Veterinary
Officer Kate Creevy started back.
In 2013 2014, thinking about companion dogs
as a model to understand the aging process
and and I got involved right around 2014
and and we've been working since then,
really to to build the infrastructure
to carry out this large project
that we're performing right now.
So we got to a grant from the
National Institute on Aging,
which is part of the the NIH in 2018,
which has really allowed us to do.
To do what we needed to do
to really build this,
and so we've been working hard to
build the infrastructure for it.
Those two pieces that I talked
about earlier what we call the
the longitudinal Study of Aging,
which is just observation ULL.
We're just following dogs to
try to understand.
You know what?
What in terms of their genes and
in terms of their environment,
influences disease and health during
aging and and the clinical trial part.
And so that really got launched in 2018.
We have, as of this week,
I think almost 37,000.
Dogs in the longitudinal study
as part of the Dog Aging project,
so it's growing quite dramatically
over the last few years,
the
National Institute of Health often put
a lot of interest into animal health.
Or is this something they hope that
might one day translate to human study?
Yeah, that's a really good question,
so so NIH places an emphasis
on biomedical discovery that
has relevance to human health.
So absolutely the hope and expectation
is that what we learn about.
The biology of aging in dogs will
be relevant for human aging and I
and I they think those of us who are
in the field are certain of that.
There's really no question at
this point that the the biological
mechanisms of aging are shared
across the animal Kingdom, at least.
Largely not everything is identical,
but you know you can also see that I
think anybody who's ever had an older dog,
you know will look at their dog and
recognize a lot of the same changes in
their dog that we see in ourselves, right?
So so so.
It's also shared at that level.
Are you still? Taking on other dogs,
I mean, how do people sign up and and
I guess what would the commitment be
for someone who wanted to get involved,
right? So we absolutely are still
recruiting dogs into the longitudinal
study and the clinical trial.
The commitments a little bit different
for the for the two types of studies.
So for the longitudinal study,
what owners do is they come to our
website itsdogagingproject.org where
you will complete a health and life
experiences survey and it's a it's a.
It's a fairly extensive survey that explores,
you, know, many aspects of your dogs
environment and its health history.
Once owners do that,
they are members of the
dog Aging Project Pack.
They are part of the study and then can.
The dogs are eligible for some other
cohorts where we will sequence the dogs DNA.
Things like that.
That's really the only commitment and then
every year we ask the owners to to update
us on any changes in their dogs health.
So it is a longitudinal study.
We're following these dogs.
Throughout their lives,
that's it.
And I think most owners enjoy participating.
We give data back to the
owners about you know.
Where does your dog fit in
with the rest of the dogs in
the pack and things like that?
Are there any specific dogs
or breeds you're looking for?
Not really so we are.
We want to capture that
diversity in in the dog world,
so we want all all breeds,
all sizes, all shapes.
We are a little bit underrepresented for
puppies so so I will make a special appeal.
You need puppies.
Now for anybody out there
who has has a puppy,
I very much encourage you to
come come to the website and and
sign your dog up to participate.
It's funny because you know we're
called the dog aging project because
we're studying aging in dogs,
but the only way we can really
study aging in dogs is also
to study young dogs.
Well, my goodness, Matt.
Thank you so much for taking
the time to explain what is now
become our brand new favorite
scientific study. Thank you.
And if you'd like a link to the dog
aging project, text the word dog to 206.
448-4545 and in case you're wondering,
you do not need to participate
in the clinical trial to be
part of the overall study.
That's good news, huh?
OK, this is Kehlani. We love her.