Workshop on the potential of livestock genetics, genomics and breeding to reduce Methane and Nitrogen

Proceedings of the symposium on High throughput genotyping, numerical genomics and quantitative genetics in farm animals

Workshop on Selective Breeding for Aquaculture - current trends and future prospects

The workshop took place on the 30th of November 2004 at Napier University. This one-day workshop brought together 38 delegates from industry, academia, farmers associations and funding bodies representing most of the key players in UK aquaculture. In feedback, the workshop, its organisation and the venue were rated from good to very good and 62% reported that information acquired would change the way they work in the future. Presentations included the producers’ perspectives and breeders’ perspectives, the potential of genomics, the current status in salmon and cod genomics and two brief talks on the EU and UK main funding mechanisms. Please click here to get a full programme of the day. This was followed by a 2-hour discussion chaired by Prof Alan Teale, aiming to identify research priorities, with a particular emphasis on the industry concerns. As a result, a summary stating the priorities and conclusions of the discussion is now in the process to be submitted to several funding bodies (Defra Fish Health & Aquaculture Research Programme, Defra-CARD, SARF, SEERAD).

Updating the Genesis Faraday Roadmap November 2004

Genesis Faraday now has almost twice as many members as in May 2003, when the first Genesis Faraday Roadmap was produced. Therefore, the recent Genesis Faraday Annual Event was used to review this Roadmap and give new and older members the opportunity to feedback their priorities for output traits, themes for research and themes for technology transfer to focus and guide future Genesis Faraday activities. The revisited map allows us to prioritise our work (e.g. defining workshop subjects) and to feed priorities into funding organisations. It should also help researchers better understand the needs of industry. Following the Annual Event, a document detailing the Second Roadmapping exercise was produced. Details of this can be found on the downloads page, along with the original Genesis Faraday Roadmap.

Sheep Genetics visit to PIC - 4 June

Genesis Faraday organised a visit for sheep breeders to PIC, (pig breeding company, owned by Genesis Faraday Partner Sygen International). The objective of the visit was to gain an insight into the development and structure of a pig breeding company, in order to identify how this might relate to the UK sheep industry.

Breeders and representatives of several sheep breeds were provided with an extremely interesting insight into the history and set up of PIC and the genetic principles the pig industry applies. Delegates stated how impressed they were by the development of PIC from a small farmer owned company to become the world’s largest pig breeding company. Lengthy, open discussions explored how PIC’s organisational structure and use of genetic techniques relate to, and might be employed by the sheep industry

Feedback concluded that the visit was extremely valuable and thought provoking, and it was suggested that similar visits should be organised in the future for other breeders, species and segments of the livestock industry.

Workshop on Nucleic Acid-based Diagnostics for Human and Animal Health - May 13

This workshop, which was co-organised by Genesis Faraday and DiagnOx, took place at the Pentland Science Park, Edinburgh. The meeting was attended by 84 delegates (including staff and speakers) and got very positive feedback; all feed back forms rated the organization as good or excellent, and a 70% admitted that the information acquired during the workshop would change the way they work in the future. The presentations have been circulated among the delegates. Another workshop in the same topic is currently under consideration.

Sheepbreeders Round Table

Genesis Faraday sponsored the November 2003 Sheep Breeders Roundtable by funding all the costs of an overseas speaker. Jeremy Absolom from Rissington Breedline, Napier, New Zealand, gave a stimulating talk on how his family and partners had invested to create a sheep breeding company. The concept for their new company was based on their studies of how pig breeding companies operate. Rissington have chosen to produce and test composite sire and dam lines on a large scale. Many of the approaches Rissington have adopted would be unusual in the UK, for example selling their 3000 rams ‘sight-unseen’ by customers with a money back guarantee. This revelation provoked an audible sharp intake of breath from the audience. The Roundtable was attended by 109 delegates including delegates from 13 Faraday members. Four new membership applications resulted from the meeting.

Frontiers of innate immunity - the genetics of disease resistance

One of the challenges facing the UK animal breeding and health industries is to understand and utilise genetic variation in disease resistance of farmed species. This need is becoming more urgent as prophylactic use of chemotherapeutics is subject to ever greater regulatory restriction. To engage and facilitate dialogue, research and knowledge transfer on this subject Genesis Faraday organised a one-day workshop entitled “Frontiers of innate immunity – the genetics of disease resistance”. Scientists from the animal breeding industry and livestock researchers learnt about industry needs and the cutting edge developments in tools, research and technology from leading international groups working on both livestock species and model organisms. One of the positive discussion points was that some animals might show simultaneous genetic resistance to several types of pathogen. The workshop highlighted the shortage of experimental or real world breeding populations where good phenotypic records of health and fitness were recorded. Industry was asked to identify any such populations that might be used in research and to increase the recording of these traits in nucleus herds and flocks. Where relevant phenotypes were recorded on farm animals ensuring collection and retention of DNA for future research should be a priority. A key conclusion of the day was the clear need for closer industrial/academic collaboration in this field and improved technology interaction. At least two potential new scientific collaborations are being progressed as a direct result of the workshop.

Report of Integration of Structural and Functional Genomics Meeting 2005

Genesis Faraday Pre- and Neonatal Survival Workshop Proceedings

Genomia Fund - £2.3m secured to help plug the ‘Innovation Gap’

One of the key reasons that Faraday Partnerships were created in the first place was to improve the transfer of quality science into industrial application and wealth creation. In trying to improve the flow of ‘research into practice’, there is a well-recognised problem called the ‘innovation-gap’. This is the gap between when the research funders think the basic or strategic science is complete and when the product or process is sufficiently developed to attract industrial investment.

One of several mechanisms Government has made available to address this gap is the Public Sector Research Exploitation fund (PSRE). This makes available cash for improving the innovation capacity in public sector research labs and for the establishment of high-risk seed-funds. The Office of Science and Technology announced a second round of the PSRE scheme in 2003 and made a fund of £15m open to bids.

BBSRC Genesis Faraday ‘earmarked’ Core Research

Against the call for ‘core’ proposals, seven outline proposals were received and, through an iterative process managed by the Research and Development Committee, were narrowed down to two proposals submitted to BBSRC in January 2004. The outcome of these applications is expected mid-2004.

Analysis of commercial livestock breeding data

Genesis Faraday would like to prompt its commercial animal breeding members about data collection for M.Sc. projects. These projects will be undertaken by the students studying the M.Sc. in Quantitative Genetics and Genome Analysis at Edinburgh University. A project outline describing the available data will need to be submitted in Dec 2004 for mini and maxi MSc dissertation projects to be undertaken in Jan 2005 and May 2005. If you would like the next generation of UK-trained quantitative geneticists to analyze your data, now would be a good time to start collecting it.

Genetics and Genomics in Ruminant Livestock DTI GlobalWatch Mission to Australia and New Zealand- Final report