About the project

Chief among the improvements required in animal breeding and management, to meet the challenges posed to future food production, is the ability to more accurately use an animal's genetic code (genotype “G”) to predict its characteristics (phenotype “P”). “G” to “P” (G2P) research is very powerful, allowing, for example, prediction of how resilient certain animals will be to different diseases.

This information can then be used to make efficient and sustainable breeding decisions and to tailor animal management practices. However, G2P research poses considerable challenges. On the “G” side, current FAANG efforts are progressively improving the genome annotation of terrestrial and aquatic farmed animal species.

On the “P” side, existing research and phenotyping infrastructures work to gain more knowledge on complex phenotypic traits (e.g. how methane emissions could be reduced in farmed ruminants) and their genetic architecture, and to provide access to in vivo phenotyping tools and resources.

In order to fill the gaps between the “G” and “P” components, we need to be able to characterise highly complex traits as sets of intermediate informative phenotypes along the entire cascade from genome to cell, organism, environment, population and across different environments. To adequately face the challenges of G2P there is currently a gap in the European research and innovation infrastructure landscape for streamlining and managing the requisite data, resources and capabilities required by scientists and stakeholders in Europe.

The EuroFAANG infrastructure “will address this research challenge at the European and global level” and contribute to increasing European excellence in G2P research.

The project is funded for three years and represents the concept development phase of an infrastructure's life cycle.

Objective

Build on the foundation provided by a range of H2020 projects focusing on farmed animal genomics/epigenetics/functional annotation, and streamline how we use and expand capabilities in G2P research in farmed animals to achieve key priorities in the field.

Participants

NMBU participants

External participants

• Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), Germany
• The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, UK
• Wageningen University and Research Institute, Netherlands
• French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAe), France
• European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)-European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), UK European
• Forum for Farmed Animal Breeders (EFFAB), Belgium