The Darwin’s Ark (Darwin’s Dogs and Darwin’s Cats) experience combines genetics and behavior to inform all manner of scientific study. Participating means answering survey questions about your pet, and then, if you like, receiving a DNA kit (type depends on the selected experience). We’ll sequence the DNA from the sample and send you genetic and ancestry information about your pet. That information will also be added to our enormous data bank of information, to be shared freely throughout the scientific world. Not yet, but we are getting there! Right now, Darwin’s Dogs is currently the only active Ark experience for pets. The Darwin’s Cat experience is currently in the Beta Phase, meaning that we are building up the platform, user experience and science. If you have a cat, you can help us to create this experience, but hurry, only 1,000 cats are being accepted while we are in this Beta Phase! We will provide access to the registration pages very soon! Yes! We continuously accept new dogs to enroll and participate. Each dog is unique behaviorally and genetically, so we want as many participants as possible! We will soon be launching Darwin’s Cats, which will be in the Beta phase, meaning we are limiting participation during the first few months. We will provide access to the registration pages very soon! Absolutely! We are interested in all mix-breed or purebred pets. The unique genetic profiles that characterize purebreds offer insight into the role of genetics on phenotype. Mixed breeds most likely have more shuffling of those phenotypes, so they can help us identify specific changes in genes that affect health and behavior. All of them! Our research is based on studying a very large number of dogs and cats, so we to include pet parents who own more than one. At this time we cannot send DNA kits internationally, but do plan to in the near future. Would still love to have your pet enrolled with us so we can get to know them through the surveys, which are equally as important. The survey answers are incredibly important to our work, but are optional. You do not need to answer survey questions to get results, but we sure would like those answers! By telling us about your pet, this data helps us to make groundbreaking discoveries as we try to uncover correlations between behavior and genetics. Yes, but we prefer that you don’t! We love the spontaneous responses people give that tell a lot about their pets. We ask that you only change the answers if you misunderstood a question and know you answered it wrong. At this time, we have removed the option to join the Free Kit Waitlist as we have reached maximum capacity. For pet parents that had previously joined the list for a kit, please know that you are still in the queue to receive a DNA kit once supportive funding is acquired. We greatly appreciate your support and patience! If you have received your Free DNA Kit and sent back your dog’s DNA sample, rest assured the sample remains safe and stable in our laboratory. We are working hard to obtain more funds in order to support the sequencing of your dog’s DNA sample. If you do not want to wait for our grant funding to support your DNA Kit or dog’s sequencing, the option to order a DNA kit or Order the DNA Analysis is an available on your pets profile, but not required. Explorer Level – $149 With your donation of $149, we can can send you a DNA Kit immediately. Your dog’s DNA will be sent to our partner lab, who will include your dog’s DNA in the next batch of 20 Explorer level samples received, allowing us to return your dog’s DNA results more quickly. We can’t give exact timing, but first results are likely to come in between 90 and 120 days of receipt of the 20 samples needed to sequence the batch. Trailblazer Level – $1,499 Be the foundation upon which knowledge is built. With your donation of $1,499, your dog will join an elite group of fewer than 1,000 dogs worldwide with a complete DNA sequence, informing scientists world-wide in the advancement and study of canine and human health. Trailblazer level contributors’ samples will be sent to the Broad Institute lab for immediate sequencing. Your dog’s full genome will be sequenced at “30x coverage,” which means each of the 2.4 billion bases (A, C, G, T) is sequenced on average thirty times to ensure accuracy. You’ll be notified of your dog’s DNA results, and you’ll receive a personalized certificate of scientific contribution with your dog’s ancestry results from the Darwin’s Ark scientists at UMass Medical School, and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. If you wish, your dog will also be highlighted on our website. No. It is extremely important that you use the DNA kit you receive on the dog it is intended for. If the sample and dog information don’t match, the genetic results will be assigned to the wrong dog in your profile. If the assigned dog has died or for some reason no longer lives with you, please contact us at support@DarwinsArk.org. It’s easy! We provide instructions and a video to guide you through the process. No. We only accept DNA donations via our saliva kits. We’re currently testing over 4 million genetic markers per sample! This depth of information is not available anywhere else, and offers a remarkable opportunity to improve the health of dogs and their humans now and in the future. Exact timing of results will depend on what level plan you’ve chosen, and how many other people have signed up for the same level, as DNA Kits must be run in batches (except for our Trailblazer level, which is run individually, as a full genome sequence). This is true community science, and like most scientists, we’re waiting for funding. We hope to send (and sequence) free DNA Kits for all eligible participants. We have a busy grant writing team always seeking funding. However, it will take quite some time, even years, for grants to be awarded that allow us to pay for DNA Kits for all participating dogs. Keep in mind that we’re a scientific “club” of co-experimenters with you! Your results may arrive in stages, with genetic data and breed reports coming in first, and interpretation and further ancestry results later in the process. You will also have access to your dog’s complete sequence data (the “raw” data) at any time. A good guesstimate of wait for the Explorer paid level time is 90 to 120 days for first results. The free DNA Kits will take much longer, possibly more than a year at this point in our funding. Once you receive a Darwin’s Ark free DNA Kit, it will be processed in about the same timeline as the Explorer level kits. Please know that we cannot guarantee any timeline at this point in the scientific study. For starters, we’ll be able to tell you what breeds are in your dog’s past, provided those breeds are in our reference panels. As more dogs participate, our breed ancestry analysis will delve deeper into the history of your dog’s genetics. This means that you might in the future get updated reports with adjusted or additional breed contributions to your dog’s ancestry. By contributing to Darwin’s Ark, you are helping us move the science of breed analysis forward – and science is fluid, sometimes frustrating, and always interesting as it grows! No. Darwin’s Ark does not offer predictive health results. We feel strongly that only well-validated science be included in our reports to dog owners. We also feel strongly that health tests that are offered for dogs should meet the same quality standards as those required in human medicine. To date, they do not meet those standards. We caution you that, for now, the best way to learn about your dog’s health is not via a genetic study such as ours, but to talk with your veterinarian if you have concerns. Breed results for your dog will continue to improve in accuracy as our reference panel grows. Breeds we can currently call in our analysis are below. Please note that we do not currently report wolf ancestry.
We generate about 9,000,000 markers for each dog for our research. Our breed ancestry panel currently uses 688,060 of those markers. We are limited in the number of markers we can use for breed ancestry, because the algorithm we use requires that every dog in our breed panel have the same number of markers. Some of our breed panel dogs come from rare breeds that we sourced outside of the Darwin’s Ark project, and who therefore have a smaller number of markers. We hope to continue to increase the number of markers we use in breed calling, and therefore the accuracy of our results.
We use the machine learning method “SupportMix,” which is described in the open access paper Omberg, Larsson, et al. “Inferring genome-wide patterns of admixture in Qataris using fifty-five ancestral populations.” BMC Genetics 13.1 (2012): 49. The Darwin’s Ark Foundation is a registered non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health of pets and their people through science. Darwin’s Ark is staffed by members of the Karlsson Lab at the UMass Chan Medical School and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. We’re committed to open science, and the data we produce is shared with all interested researchers worldwide. Yes! We are committed to keeping the Darwin’s Ark project free to anyone who is willing to participate, but research is expensive. We would love your help, either by purchasing a DNA kit for your own pet or by a donation to support our research. Yes! Darwin’s Ark is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (82-3942341). Your contribution is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by the law. For each Darwin’s Ark transaction, you will receive an email with your tax-deductible amount. Darwin’s Ark seeks to better understand the genetic influences on how our beloved pets look and behave. We ask questions about behavior and the genes controlling all types traits, from size to coat color to shyness to interest in play. This is a very long term study, and we hope that as it progresses, our findings will help to better understand how genetics affect our pets personality, health and sensitivities. To do this study, we need a massive number of pets, and we’re asking for your help! We will look at many places in the genome (millions of them!) and see whether we can find differences in the DNA that match up with differences in phenotype (i.e., how the animal looks and acts, or if it suffers from any diseases). In other words, we’re trying to match up the unknowns about behavior, diseases, and traits with the unknowns about genetics in a way that can provide new information for both fields. To do this successfully, we need many pets – thousands or even tens of thousands! Sign up your pet and tell your friends and family! Answer our survey questions about your pet – which provides us with tons of helpful data. Finally, we are always seeking donations to help us analyze more DNA. The data collected from our surveys are a crucial part of our research, and show us a fascinating aspect of both dogs and cats not seen through the microscope. We use our survey data to answer questions such as “are Labrador retrievers really more interested in food than other breeds?” and “are anxious dogs more likely to have allergies?” and “what kinds of personality traits tend to go together?” These questions are scientifically interesting on their own, but also help us develop theories about what’s going on at the genetic level.Frequently Asked Questions
What Does it Mean to Participate in Darwin’s Ark?
Are you accepting all pets for Darwin’s Ark participation?
Are you still accepting dogs?
Can my mixed-breed or purebred pet participate?
I have more than one pet. Which one should I enroll?
What if I’m not a US resident?
ANSWERING SURVEYS
Do I need to do the surveys to participate?
Can I edit my answers to survey questions?
GETTING A DNA KIT (Darwin’s Dogs)
Is there still a Free Kit Waitlist?
ONCE YOU GET A DNA KIT (Darwin’s Dogs)
I just got a DNA kit for one of my dogs. Can I use it on another dog?
How do I collect a saliva sample for DNA analysis?
Can I send you other samples from my dog, such as blood?
How Many Genetic Markers are you Testing Per Dog DNA Sample?
How Long Will It Take to Get My Dog’s Results?
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM YOUR DOG’S RESULTS
Will you tell me about my dog’s breed ancestry?
Will you tell me about my dog's health?
What breeds are in your reference panel?
How many markers are in your reference panel?
What algorithm do you use to analyze my dog's breed ancestry?
ABOUT US
Who is running this project?
Do you accept donations?
Is my donation tax deductible?
OUR GOALS AND YOUR CONTRIBUTION
What is the goal of Darwin’s Ark?
What will you learn from my pet’s DNA?
How can I contribute to Darwin’s Ark?
What will you learn from my pet’s survey questions?