News

The annual Research Advisory Committee meeting was held virtually this year. The meeting started with an outline of the overall goals and specific objectives of phase II (2018-2023) of the program: the capacity strengthening plan and the discovery, development, and implementation phases of the program presented by Dr. Huaijun Zhou the director of Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Genomics to Improve Poultry.

This year, the GIP program endorsed the virtual platform to hold the annual meeting for the week of October 06, 2020. The online event brought together partners from Sokoine University of Agriculture, the University of Ghana, International Livestock Research Institute, Iowa State University, and the University of California Davis. We were honored to be joined by Dr. Tyrell Kahan, Livestock Research Advisor at Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, USAID.

Dr. Sue Lamont was acknowledged by the Iowa Poultry Association with the Honorary Member Award as a distinguished professor that made significant contributions to the poultry community in Iowa. The Genomics to Improve Poultry team congratulates Dr. Lamont for her outstanding performances.

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Congratulations to Dr. Huaijun Zhou on receiving the UC Davis Chancellor’s Award for International Engagement.  Dr. Zhou was recognized for his outstanding innovative global engagement by carrying out cutting-edge research trough international collaboration with aboard institutions, and commitment to globally educating the next generation of scientists.

Emily Aston, Ph.D., DVM and postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Zhou’s lab, led a training at the University of Ghana (UoG) introducing the Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencing technology to characterize Newcastle disease virus (NDV) circulating in poultry. This real-time sequencing technology will help researchers at UoG to comprehend the phylogenetics diversity of the NDV virus strains circulating locally in Ghana and eventually enrich the available NDV genomics database.

The meeting was held at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania, and hosted by our partners, Dr. Amandus Muhairwa and Dr. Peter Msoffe. The event brought together research team members from the Sokoine University of Agriculture, the University of Ghana, the International Livestock Research Institute, Iowa State University, and the University of California – Davis to share highlights and achievements over the past year and to discuss future directions of the program.

Dr. Ying Wang, a Project Scientist and member at Dr. Zhou’s lab, conducted a training workshop at the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Tanzania. Scientists and graduate students at SUA were trained to: a) evaluate the natural antibody levels in bird serums using KLH ELISA technique developed at Zhou’s lab, and b) to optimize the RNA extraction assay on birds’ swab samples to screen birds for Newcastle disease. In addition to the assay optimization and implementation of the KLH ELISA method, the training also included qPCR data entry and analysis.

Ana Da Silva, Ph.D., DVM and a member of Dr. Rodrigo Gallardo’s lab conducted training workshop at the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Tanzania. Ana trained students and scientists at Dr. Amandus Muhairwa’s lab to carry out RT-PCR amplification and library preparation for sequencing. The training included teaching a novel sequencing technique using of the MinION device, a cutting edge molecular tool. This new sequencing technology will allow SUA researchers to characterize the genetics diversity of NDV isolated from poultry in viruses on-site.

The Genomics to Improve Poultry Innovation Lab (GIP IL) has partnered with the Tanzania Veterinary Laboratory Agency (TVLA) in Tanzania to improve our understanding of the epidemiology of NDV strains circulating in chickens in Tanzania. To kick off this new partnership, the GIP IL conducted a training workshop on 10th and 11th May 2019 at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania.

Ashley Birakos, an undergraduate student at University of California, Davis with the support from the Global Programs Underserved Community Fellowship, had the opportunity to visit the GIP innovation lab in Tanzania to screen sick birds at live birds markets, in Morogoro for Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) infection.  She collected swab samples from chickens with NDV clinical signs at the markets, helped to extract the viral RNA and run a qRTPCR to screen the positive birds.