Mr. Wendell Stoltz, 56, is a self-employed piano tuner. He has lived
at 312 Edelweiss Strasse in Helen, Georgia, since 2008. He has
owned, since April 2017, a long-haired dachshund named Gerhardt.
Gerhardt is, per Mr. Stoltz's 2019 veterinary records, a neutered
male, approximately 9 years old, approximately 14 pounds at his
most recent weighing, and in generally good health apart from what
Mr. Stoltz describes as "the usual back situation."
In December 2019, Mr. Stoltz, acting on a Christmas-gift certificate
from his sister, submitted a cheek-swab sample from Gerhardt to
PetFinch Ancestry, a commercial pet-genetics service based in
Austin, Texas, for a full-genome ancestry report. The report, which
Mr. Stoltz received in PDF form by email on February 14, 2020,
concluded that Gerhardt was "99.1% Dachshund," with a 0.9% "trace
signal" the report's algorithm identified, with low confidence, as
possibly Corgi. The report included, as a downloadable attachment,
Gerhardt's complete whole-genome sequence in FASTA format, a 18.4-
megabyte plain-text file of A, C, G, and T characters.
Mr. Stoltz saved the file to a USB thumb drive. The drive has lived,
since February 2020, in the top-right drawer of the desk in his
front parlor, labeled in Sharpie "GERHARDT GENOME 2019."
On Wednesday, January 28, 2026, Google DeepMind, the London-based
artificial-intelligence research laboratory owned by Alphabet Inc.,
released AlphaGenome — a deep-learning model trained to predict the
functional effects of genetic variants across multiple regulatory
modalities from long DNA sequences. The model is intended, per
DeepMind's announcement, to assist human geneticists in
interpreting the non-coding portions of human and animal genomes. A
public-preview portal, accepting FASTA-format uploads from any
registered user, was made available simultaneously.
Mr. Stoltz registered for the portal Thursday morning, January 29,
at approximately 9:14 a.m. He uploaded Gerhardt's FASTA file at 9:32
a.m.
The upload
Mr. Stoltz received, upon upload, a confirmation message reading:
"Your sequence has been accepted. Results will be delivered to your
registered email address. Delivery time depends on queue depth and
sequence length; estimated wait is 24-72 hours."
Mr. Stoltz checked his email at 10:17 a.m. Thursday, 11:43 a.m.
Thursday, 1:22 p.m. Thursday, 3:47 p.m. Thursday, 5:14 p.m.
Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, and 9:58 p.m. Thursday. He checked it
again Friday morning at 7:04 a.m., and at approximately fifteen
additional time-points through Friday afternoon.
He did not receive a response.
He has not, as of this reporting, received a response.
His expectations
I interviewed Mr. Stoltz in his front parlor Friday afternoon.
Gerhardt was present, asleep on the living-room rug. Mr. Stoltz
offered me coffee. I accepted.
Asked what he expected AlphaGenome to return, Mr. Stoltz said: "I
don't know. I am not a geneticist. I am a piano tuner. What I am
hoping for is, I suppose, a better prediction of Gerhardt's back
trajectory. Dachshunds, as you probably know, have vertebral
challenges. Gerhardt has been on glucosamine since 2020. If the
model could tell me, with specificity, which of Gerhardt's genetic
variants are contributing to his back situation, I would find that
useful. I would share it with our veterinarian."
He added: "I am also interested in the Corgi."
Asked whether he understood that AlphaGenome's public-preview portal
is, per its technical documentation, intended primarily for human
DNA and that dog genomes may be processed on a best-effort basis
without formal canine-specific interpretation, Mr. Stoltz said: "I
saw that. I figured I would try it anyway. The worst that happens
is no response, and then I am where I was on Wednesday."
Our understanding
DeepMind's media-relations office, contacted Friday evening via the
press inquiry form on the AlphaGenome product page, did not respond
by press time. PetFinch Ancestry, contacted separately Friday
afternoon about whether Gerhardt's 2019 FASTA file was of
sufficient quality to support the kind of analysis AlphaGenome
performs, declined to comment on individual customer files, citing
their standard confidentiality policy.
Gerhardt, asked in the living room what he was hoping for, did not
respond. He continued to sleep.
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