Wisdom Panel Unveils Next Generation Dog Breed Detection System

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Press release: Wisdom Panel

Wisdom Panel, the world’s leading pet genetics brand, recently announced the development of a new breed detection system, called BCSYS, to offer the most accurate and comprehensive genetic testing for dogs currently available.

The next generation breed detection system created by the Wisdom Panel team, a segment of Kinship Partners, Inc., leverages best-in-class Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods and the largest dog DNA database in the world to provide the most accurate (>98%) and precise dog DNA test on the market, furthering Kinship’s mission to help everyone pet parent like a pro.

“As the world’s leader in pet genetics, we’re committed to bringing the best, most accurate science to pet parents everywhere so we’re especially proud to announce the launch of this new state-of-the-art breed detection system,” said Rebecca Chodroff Foran, PhD, head of R&D. “With these updates, the Wisdom Panel team continues to revolutionize precision veterinary care, empowering pet parents with the insights they need to take the best care of their pet.”

Wisdom Panel scientists, many of whom joined from the ranks of top human genetics testing companies, built this custom, patent-pending breed detection system over the past two years. BCSYS leverages the world’s largest known dog DNA reference panel (21,000 samples and counting), representing 351 genetically distinct breeds and populations collected by the Wisdom Panel veterinary research team. The reference panel was drawn from our world-leading database of over 2.5M dogs tested across more than 50 countries and six continents — and over 1,000 Banfield Pet Hospital clinics — currently in the Wisdom Panel database.

“BCSYS is particularly innovative thanks to its ability to easily scale to extremely large reference panels; it uses best-in-class methods as well as the largest dog DNA database in the world, efficiently matching pieces of sample DNA to a reference panel with exceptional accuracy,” said Daniel Garrigan, PhD, senior scientist of population genetics. “When compared to the industry standard, the new Wisdom Panel algorithm outperformed all others with error rates two to four times lower than the industry standard in mixed breed samples—meaning the Wisdom Panel breed detection system is now more accurate than anything else on the market.”