Horse centre races into action

UQ’s $1.8 million horse genetics centre has opened in a new building with better facilities to verify thoroughbred bloodlines.

The Australian Equine Genetics Research Centre (AEGRC) was officially opened by the chairmen of the Australian Jockey Club David Hall and Victoria Racing Club Rodney Fitzroy.

The Centre, on level seven of the Chemistry building at UQ St Lucia, uses DNA profiling to verify the parentage of all racing thoroughbreds and many other horse breeds in Australia from Arabians to Quarter horses.

DNA profiling confirms horse identity and pedigree. Australian thoroughbred horses need AEGRC verification before they are bought, sold or raced.

AEGRC Director Associate Professor Ann Trezise said the Centre, which is a joint project for UQ and the Australian Stud Book, has analysed more than 600,000 horse DNA and blood samples from the 1980s.

Associate Professor Trezise said the new building was a world-class genotyping laboratory with internationally accredited best management practices to track and test all samples.

She said the new building had helped its nine full-time staff cut sample verification times to several days, sometimes within 24 hours.

“This centre is one of the earliest examples of biotechnology in action in Queensland,” Associate Professor Trezise said.

“Annually now the Australian Stud Book invests between $1.1 and $1.2 million to support the DNA profiling work and to support research in equine genetics.”

She said about 160,000 horse DNA profiles had been collected since 2000.

The Centre’s founding director Associate Professor Kevin Bell (retired) first worked with the Stud Book in 1979.

Thoroughbred parentage testing had relied on blood samples until 2002, when DNA was used.

Now DNA is extracted from hairs from the horses’ manes with about 30 hairs usually sent for analysis.

The new space for the Centre in Chemistry replaces the old equine building that was demolished to make room for the Queensland Brain Institute.

The Centre is part of the School of Biomedical Sciences within UQ’s Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences.

MEDIA: Associate Professor Trezise (07 3365 3647) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (3365 2619) *Hi-res photos available from Diana Lilley at UQ on 3365 2753