Thoughts On Basepaws?

Skeptic

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Based upon what I know about cat breeds, I can't help but be pretty skeptical of this new company. I also know that veterinary schools like UC Davis have been doing DNA testing for much longer so I'm not sure what Basepaws can learn about breeds and hereditary diseases(they claim this will be available in 2019) that UC Davis and other researchers haven't already discovered.

I've seen some of the results that people have received and they show a list of breeds that their cat is "genetically most similar to," though they also note that they're domestics. I find that to be a bit confusing.

I'm also concerned that the company could go under or simply never deliver the results they promise to eventually have available.


Any positive experiences here? Has anyone had their purebred cat tested through them?

For those who understand feline genetics much better than me: what are your thoughts? What do you think of the list of breeds they send people?
 

StefanZ

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Now, if a cat IS domestic, without a really near breed ancestry, its such result it will give.

Although I myself hadnt tried them, nor UC DAvis.
 

abyeb

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The samples that Basepaws receives go through rigorous processing and sequencing before comparing the result to those in their database. The process itself is quite interesting, and we have an article about it right here on TCS: Discover Your Cat's Genetic Makeup With Basepaws
 

lutece

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Compared to UC Davis VGL which does genuine genetic testing for a large number of species and genetic traits, at this point Basepaws looks to me like a whole lot of marketing plus wishful thinking and promises.

According to their web site, the "Alpha report" that is currently available has a very fuzzy "Breed Index" and "Wild Cat Index." These tests are so vaguely defined that people receiving these reports have no way to know if the result has any relationship to reality. With the way the "Breed Index" is presented, giving a list of breeds, people get the impression that the report means that their cats have ancestry from the breeds listed on the report. In most cases this is going to be misleading, but breed ancestry is the answer that customers want from the test, and Basepaws needs to make its customers happy in order to survive.

It doesn't appear that Basepaws has tests yet for any specific genetic health markers or traits, although they have a lot of promises on their web site to develop these tests. They claim that "Our continuously updated research will provide benefits beyond any current test on the market," but that is a classic vaporware statement. It would be great if it gets beyond vaporware, because it would be nice to have more genetic tests available for cats, but at this time I feel it is false advertising to charge people $95 for a bunch of promises about future genetic tests they have not even developed yet.

They do not appear to be affiliated with any veterinary research institution.
The Basepaws job listings say that they are located at "LABioMed @ Harbor UCLA" which is Home | LA BioMed affiliated with the UCLA med school. UCLA doesn't have a vet school or veterinary research lab.

I was curious, so I looked up all of the people listed on the Basepaws team. The technical folks listed on the team are bioinformatics people which is fine, but I don't see anyone on the team with expertise or professional interests in feline genetics specifically (or veterinary genetics of any other kind). It also looks like the technical people on the team have only worked there a short time, on a part-time or consulting basis, which may explain the delays that people have had in receiving their test results.

Anna Skaya, CEO, has some kind of undergraduate degree from UCLA and her background appears to be in marketing.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaskaya/

Curtis Jamison is a bioinformatics guy who works at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He also lists a position as Chief Scientific Officer for Basepaws for the past 6 months, but his main position is listed at Thermo Fisher, so I don't know how much work he actually does for Basepaws.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcurtisjamison/

Damian Kao is a bioinformatics guy who has been consulting at Basepaws for 4 months.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/damiankao/

Sangjun Lee works at Futureceuticals and has done some consulting for Basepaws.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sangjun-lee-04167a154/
Sangjun Lee, Ph.D. | FutureCeuticals
 
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lutece

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By the way, I asked some questions about Basepaws in this thread here on TCS: Basepaws

It looks like they took my questions and instead of giving the answers here on TCS, they turned them into a "Frequently asked questions" in the blog post linked below. You can read their answers for yourself and see if it convinces you of anything...
Behind the Scenes at Basepaws - Cat DNA Test Kit | Basepaws

To me, these answers are a lot more vague than what I was hoping for. I can't say I am reassured by the mention of verifying a cat's breed by getting a "breed certificate" since there is no such thing... they must mean registration certificate, but in that case why would they say that they sometimes need to follow up with official proof from CFA/TICA, since that is what a registration certificate is? And when I ask how many cats of each breed they have in their database, I would like to hear some actual details, not just "we are always adding more cats and more breeds, and are planning to have the largest such database of cat breeds."

Right now, the "Breed Index" is their main product, and the quality of this product should matter. It's great that Basepaws has a lab and processes samples, but using lab equipment doesn't automatically make their reports good science.
 
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1CatOverTheLine

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I can't say I am reassured by the mention of verifying a cat's breed by getting a "breed certificate" since there is no such thing... they must mean registration certificate, but in that case why would they say that they sometimes need to follow up with official proof from CFA/TICA, since that is what a registration certificate is?
lutece lutece - In the dog world, breed certificates are sometimes issued by kennel clubs for non-registered purebred dogs. Hopefully StefanZ StefanZ can shed some light here, because I believe that in certain instances, some European bodies in the Cat Fancy likewise issue breed certificates for purebred cats with no pedigree present, or a with pedigree with an insufficient number of generations recorded.

After reading the blog, I don't believe that BasePaws would suffer overmuch from the hiring of a professional technical writer.
.
 

lutece

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European registration bodies issue registration certificates on a secondary register for cats with unverified or experimental pedigrees, but this is not called a breed certificate. Here is an example of how LOOF does it. I'm very familiar with these, as I work with European breeders and advise people in the US on how to verify and check pedigrees when importing cats.
LOOF - RIA/RIEX/RF

I think the probability is close to nil that Basepaws is attempting to refer here to some kind of obscure European certificate (and anyway, you wouldn't want to build your breed database out of cats in the experimental register!)
 
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1CatOverTheLine

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In certain cases, however, genetic testing can be used to verify a particular breed absolutely. The substitution of thymine for cytosine at nucleotide position 406 (i.e. c.C>T406) for instance, is unique to Norwegian Forest Cats, and there are quite a few anomalies which have proven unique to specific breeds. Marilyn Menotti-Raymond's now famous longest-of-long-term studies (Patterns Of Molecular Genetic Variation Among Cat Breeds) was ground-breaking in that it allowed geneticists to identify particular genetic traits indigenous solely to a particular breed, and since then (holy cow - has it really been ten years?) we have - in the words of that old Virginia Slims commercial, "come a long way, baby."
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lalagimp

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I was just told today that Tommy is more aligned with the Tonkinese, but that they are working on integrating Russian Blue into their testing, so his similar breeds could possibly budge.
 

violetxx

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We received a free kit. Took over a year to process after re-reminding them. Results were all inconclusive and vague.

Not worth the $$$
 

thefiresidecat

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huh I wonder if there really was a discovered problem with dantes kit. i had that crazy most likely orange hair assessment. I went back today to see if there had been updates and it is back to my kit is processed and awaiting sequencing. I wonder if they never processed my kit and entered someone elses results into my kit and then found my kit lol
 

lalagimp

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Oh no they sent an email out about that. Our results are currently going offline while they're about to expand the report.
 

lalagimp

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Ours are back up. I'm trying to make heads or tails of it. They didn't email us they were ready.
 

Kissamew

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BasePaws has just sent emails announcing their newest updates. I have not received my first results for two kitties but I am excited and happy to hear BasePaws progress! I realize there are other companies out there that may have more to their data base and such, but I saw BasePaws on TheCatSite and decided to go with them. I believe in giving people and hand up and I feel within me that BasePaws will become amazing and deserves a big chance!
 
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