Genetic Research - Update
Written by Celia Danks   

Hannes Lohi was born in Rovaniemi which is in the northern part of Finland. Today he lives in Vantaa and is married to Inka Lohi. They have 6 children (4 girls and 2 boys). He studied philosophy, Molecular Biology and chemistry, graduating from Oulu University in 1999, and finished his PhD (genetics) in 2002 at Helsinki University. From 2002 - 2003 he worked at
Biomedicum in Helsinki and did the cancer genetics research.
 

hannes_lohi2003 - 2006 he spent in Canada where he lead the team of scientists in the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He was responsible for the research of one kind of epilepsy, called Lafora disease. That research lead to the to miniature wirehaired dachshund with a form of epilepsy = Lafora disease in humans. The results were published in Science magazine in January 2005. In Canada his job was to do neurogenetic research.

In 2006 he started at Helsinki University as the docent of Molecular Biology. 2006 - 2008 he also started academic research at Helsinki University and Folkhalsan.

Since 2008 he has worked as veterinary molecular biology professor at Helsinki University and Folkhalsan. Today he leads a research group of 20 people who are doing research on both dog and human genetics. Their main target is to do research on epilepsy and its genetic background and the European Union supports this research by 1 million euros.

He has been awarded the Finnish Academy Award of bravery in the academic world because of his new idea of doing research on the dog genome to benefit the human genome research. His research group has got several awards for their work. Hannes Lohi has published about 30 research reports most of which have been published in the top scientific magazines. On 2007 he started a company called HT-diagnostics (www.canigen.com).
 

The Dandie Dinmont Trust first heard of his work about two years ago. We could tell by his enthusiasm that the Dandie would score high in his research. Hence our first donation of six thousand euros last year and three thousand to go in the next week or so. We have encouraged and helped where necessary with individuals and groups to send donations and blood samples, the Finnish Club being marvelous in their efforts which continue today, and also, those efforts of many other people in different countries which has been heartening.

Now he has found the gene responsible for glaucoma in our breed, but the work does not stop there, samples and funds are needed, there is much resequencing to be done to find the mutation.
 

As Hannes says -

"Thanks for your continuing support and interest! Samples are always welcome. As you know there is never too many... This is often the bottleneck in the studies".
 

So we implore you to donate to the cause through your club, individually or through us. Our link for this is www.ddtrust.com/donations.htm

Thank you........

The Dandie Dinmont Trust.