OFA given AKC CHF 2006 President’s Award

RALEIGH, NC – The American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation is proud to bestow the 2006 President’s Award to the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals for its years of dedicated support to the CHF and its mission to develop significant resources for basic and applied health programs with emphasis on canine genetics to improve the quality of life for dogs and their owners.

The President’s Award honors those organizations and individuals who make the Canine Health Foundation’s mission a reality, facilitating the Foundation’s efforts to support $17 million in canine health research at nearly 70 universities and research institutions in nine countries worldwide.

AKC Canine Health Foundation President Wayne Ferguson commented, “For forty years the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals has strived through its mission to improve the health and well being of companion animals through a reduction in the incidence of genetic disease. For ten of those years, the OFA has through its unparalleled generosity become not only a supporter of the AKC Canine Health Foundation, but a true, partnering friend.”

Examples of this OFA and AKC CHF enduring partnership are the jointly created Canine Health Information Center (CHIC) which provides a centralized canine health database for owners, breeders and scientists which assists in the breeding of healthy dogs. Also, April 2006 saw the first submissions to the jointly sponsored CHIC DNA Bank which collects and stores canine DNA samples along with corresponding genealogic, phenotypic and lifetime health history information to facilitate future research and testing aimed at reducing the incidence of inherited disease in dogs.

The 2006 AKC CHF President’s Award will be given at the 6th Annual “Gala By The Bay” held on Friday evening, December 1, 2006 in Long Beach, CA. The President of the Orthopedic Foundation, Dr. Frances Smith who will be in attendance to accept the award stated: “We are honored to receive the AKC Canine Health Foundation’s 2006 President’s Award. With a common mission to improve the health of our canine companions, yet very different day to day functions, our two organizations are uniquely positioned to work together for canine health. In fact, jointly sponsored programs such as the Canine Health Information Center (CHIC), and most recently the DNA Repository, have helped both our foundations grow and realize our objectives. It has been a pleasure to work with the AKC CHF for the past ten years, and we look forward to future joint endeavors.”

The AKC Canine Health Foundation, founded in 1995 by the American Kennel Club, funds health research worldwide exclusively for canines. We’re pleased to announce that the canine genome sequence has been completed with the Foundation being the largest nonprofit funder. Now, the canine sequence takes its place alongside the human and mouse genome as one of five premier tools that researchers worldwide will have at their fingertips – leading to the promise of quicker results, faster tests, and definitive therapies in the fight against canine and human disease. The AKC Canine Health Foundation has allocated more than $17 million in canine health research through nearly 67 universities and research institutions in seven countries for more than 380 studies.