Feline facts!!!

If you are a devoted cat lover, you probably enjoy learning about their likes, dislikes, and what makes them so purrfectly perplexing. We’ve got some good “mews!” We rounded up five facts to help you discover a bit more about them. It’s in the DNA Throughout their lives, our cat companions face a number of serious health concerns, such as kidney disease and hyperthyroidism. Now, 99 Lives, a genome sequencing research collaboration, is developing genetic tools for cutting-edge feline healthcare. According to Leslie Lyons, PhD, professor of comparative medicine at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, the project is expected to not only prevent problems for future generations, but help to cure cats who are sick now. In doing so, researchers also hope to translate any gene and drug therapies they find for cats for use in humans and other species. The analysis is expected to be completed this fall, but the project’s early success with trios—a duo of two siblings, two distantly related cats of the same breed with the same disease, and a single cat with a rare recessive trait—is proving the project’s dataset is becoming useful for a “precision medicine” approach for cats, Lyons said. continue