Last week, ISU's Department of Animal Science's Animal Breeding & Genetics section, hosted a short course in Kildee Hall entitled “Plant and Animal Breeding – Exploiting New Technologies in Different Ways and at Different Scales”, by Drs. John Hickey (Lush Visiting Professor) and Gregor Gorjanc , The Roslin Institute, The University of Edinburgh, UK. There were close to 50 in attendance from American and European institutions, with attendees from 20 countries, representing 4 continents.
Students and industry professionals from a diverse background, including animal and plant breeding, human genetics and statistics, were exposed to a variety of topics on emerging technologies in breeding. In this course, instructors expanded knowledge on simulation of genomic and phenotypic data, imputation, the use of sequencing data, optimization of breeding programs, and strategies to explore gene-editing. Dr. Jack Dekkers coordinated the course with the help of AB&G graduate students.