NC Epilepsy Study

We are currently recruiting dogs for a research project which is looking for a genetic link to drug response in epileptic dogs. The project is being performed in the Department of Genetics and College of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University. Much current research is designed to find out why some dogs get epilepsy. We’re interested in a more practical question, namely why some dogs fail to respond to anti-epileptic drugs, specifically Phenobarbital. The idea is that there is variation among dogs and breeds in their ability to digest the drug, or deliver it to the right part of the brain, or maybe even in how the drug affects their neurons. This approach has already shown promise as a way to help doctors dose drug treatments for epilepsy in humans. We are going to adopt some of the technology from the Human Genome Project for use in dogs. To do so, we need to compare the DNA from blood samples from dogs that do or do not respond to Phenobarbital.

We already have several Dachshunds enrolled in our study and felt that this study may be of interest to other owners of epileptic Dachshunds. Can you please help us spread the word regarding our research by directing your members to our website: www.carolinacanineepilepsy.org or they can email me directly at carolinacanineepilepsy@gmail.com

Thank you for your time, Erin Kennerly
Doctoral Candidate
NCSU – Dept. of Genetics
Dr. Greg Gibson’s Lab
Ph: (919) 513 – 3090

carolinacanineepilepsy@gmail.com
www.carolinacanineepilepsy.org