Jacob Sheep Sensation

What’s the relationship between a Catholic couple with a small Texas acreage, strange spotted sheep named after a biblical story, the administrative assistant of the Rabbinic Association of Greater Dallas (RAGD), and a bunch of east-coast scientists–and why should you care? We are all bound up together in the effort to find a treatment and cure for Tay-Sachs.

A week after I began working as administrat ive assistant of RAGD, I got a strange message about sheep, a farmer outside of Dallas, and Tay-Sachs disease. The Jewish Federation couldn’t help this man, the operator said; perhaps the Rabbinic Association could? The Rabbinic Association could do nothing. But as an Orthodox Jew I’m familiar with the story of Jacob and the spotted sheep, as a hand spinner I am interested in sheep and wool, and when I was young I had friends who lost three children to Tay-Sachs. Did I say I’m also a writer? I decided to investigate.

I called the farmer, Fred Horak, whose St. Jude’s Farm is named after the patron saint of lost causes. The Horaks raise Jacob Sheep, a nearly extinct breed of unique spotted sheep. He told me that the sheep might hold the treatment and cure to Tay-Sachs disease, but $3000 was needed to transport the sheep to researchers in Massachusetts. As I verified his story, I learned the following:

Ten years ago a couple of the Horaks’ lambs began to totter and lose their mobility. Then the lambs died. When their veterinarian was mystified, the Horaks, who wanted to get rid of the carriers of this disease, brought the problem to vets at the veterinary medicine school at Texas A & M University (TAMU).

Instead of helping the Horaks identify carriers, a researcher convinced them to breed for this strange disease so that TAMU researchers would have more animals to study.  They began breeding the sheep that they thought might be carriers, as well as raising healthy sheep. Soon the Horaks had about 60 sheep, of which one-third were in the disease-carrying pool. Although the Horaks continued to maintain the carrier sheep at considerable expense, researchers at TAMU seemed to forget about the sheep.

Years went by without anyone from TAMU contacting the Horaks. Finally the Horaks decided to butcher some of these sheep; they couldn’t afford to keep them forever. Then, late last winter Dr. Brian Porter of TAMU called the Horaks saying that TAMU researchers had identified the problem. In June 2008 he went out to the farm, drew blood from all the sheep, and sent it to researchers in New York City who were interested in the problem. Soon the researchers sent back the results: there were eight carriers- six ewes and two rams. The problem was Tay-Sachs Disease. Tay-Sachs has been identified in other animals, most curiously in penguins and flamingos in a few American zoos. But these animals’ genetic make-up is only remotely related to that of humans. These unusual sheep are very similar to humans in the way that matters most for unraveling the mystery of Tay-Sachs disease.

Researchers in the Tay-Sachs Gene Therapy Consortium have put together a plan to use the sheep to find a treatment and cure for the disease. When the Horaks contacted me a few months ago, their problem was money to transport the sheep from Texas to New England, where the research will be carried out. By now the transport fees are covered. However, this initiative, which holds out an excellent chance of finding a treatment and cure for this 100% fatal disease, needs to raise considerably more money. Doctors estimate that between the cost of raising the sheep, maintaining the sheep, and the research itself, they will need $500,000-$1 million. The researchers have already found cures for similar lysosomal storage diseases. They are confident that these sheep hold the key to a cure for Tay-Sachs.

The research plan has come just in time. Some of the ewes are old and have never been bred. Whether they will be able to breed is questionable. One of the rams has never successfully impregnated a ewe. The gene pool is shrinking. This year could be the last year to begin breeding the trait successfully.

To me, everything about this story has been amazing. If you believe in coincidence, that things happen randomly and occasionally fortuitously, then this saga shows an amazing series of coincidences. If you don’t believe in coincidence, then the whole ten-year saga of the Jacob Sheep shows evidence of divine providence.

Now it is our turn to play a role, and in spite of difficult financial times we need to open our wallets and support this effort. There is no time to lose.

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Mom's Addendum:

Mom sat next to Fred Horak at the research session of the NTSAD Conference.  What a special man!  He becomes tearful with each Tay-Sachs story he hears.  He told mom he has healthy kids and grandchildren and that he couldn't imagine what it would be like to experience our journey.  He has donated so much to our cause; it is not cheap to raise sick sheep.

Of the many miracles that are happening all around us, is the miracle that the old ram WAS able to impregnate the ewes.  It's a funny story but I'll skip it for now.  We were hoping for ONE affected lamb to do a trial of gene therapy on, but FOUR were born earlier this year!!  Why is this huge?  Well, one of the researchers at the conference said that if they get positive results with gene therapy in about THREE Tay-Sachs sheep, they could possibly get the approval for Human Trials.  Mommy cries every time she hears those words.  

We found another article about the Horaks that I'll link:

http://www.albc-usa.org/Newsletter/newsletterJanFeb2009.html