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GIP Program Director Huaijun Zhou was invited at Aligning the Food Systems for Improved Nutrition in Animal Source Foods Conference the to present the visions and impacts of the GIP program, including improving food and nutritional security, women’s empowerment, and decreased poverty in Africa. The program presented a poster and an exhibition table managed by Project Coordinator Dr. Chouicha, exposing the achievements and objectives of the GIP program to enhance resilience to Newcastle Disease and Heat Stress to support poultry farmers in Africa and endorsing feed the hunger mission.

Karen Tracy, a Ph.D. candidate in Immunology and a member of Dr. Huaijun Zhou’s lab in the Department of Animal Science at UCDavis. She conducted training Workshop at Dr. Boniface Kayang’s lab at University of Ghana on optimizing enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the detection of natural antibody. In addition to the hands-on lab work, the training included assay optimization, use of relative standards and data analysis.

The GIP Innovation Lab is collaborating with a network of stakeholders in Tanzania and Ghana who are working together toward the goal of attaining healthy, productive poultry populations.

The GIP Innovation Lab’s commitment to training and outreach, three graduate students from the University of Ghana and Sokoine University Agriculture, Princess Korkor Botchway, James Mushi, and Gaspar Chiwanga, were invited to participate in the 5th Meeting of the Avian Immunology Research Group (AIRG), which was held on September 2018 at the University of Oxford, England. This conference is the premier event for researchers, students, and poultry professionals involved in the poultry immunology and disease.

The GIP Innovation Lab’s focus on community education and outreach, team members in Tanzania participated in the Nane Nane Farmers’ show Morogoro from August 1st-10th, 2018. The team had a booth with experiential learning tools, including live indigenous chickens, a model chicken house for the village setting, posters and small brochures to assist farmers with take home messages.

Melissa Deist, Iowa State University, successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation in March 2018. Her research discovered important genetic pathways associated with response to Newcastle Disease virus (NDV) infection in resistant and susceptible chicken lines. In addition to her classes and research, Melissa was also active in teaching, including hands-on training in laboratory techniques in the GIP Innovation Labs in Ghana and Tanzania.

GIP Program Director Huaijun Zhou was invited to give department seminar regarding to the program at Department of Animal Science, Iowa State University. Huaijun Zhou also met with Drs. Sue Lamont, Jack Dekkers (PIs) and other GIP team members to discuss current program progress and future plans.

A team from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Global Food Security Project in Washington DC led a six-staff US Congressional delegation visited Ghana to assess the impact of Feed the Future programs implemented by USAID and other US Government Agencies. The delegation visited the University of Ghana team implementing the Poultry Genomics Feed the Future Innovation Lab on February 19, 2018. Prof. Boniface Kayang (Principal Investigator), Prof. George Aning and Prof.

As part of the GIP program’s commitment to training and outreach, Esinam Nancy Amuzu-Aweh, an early career research associate at the University of Ghana, was invited to participate in the 11th World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production (WCGALP), which was held at the Aotea Centre in Auckland, New Zealand. This congress is the premier event for researchers, students and industry professionals involved in the genetic improvement of livestock. This years’ congress brought together 1,000 delegates from all over the world.

The research team members for the “Genomics to Improve Poultry” project traveled to and held their 4th Annual Meeting in Accra, Ghana at the University of Ghana, the last week of September 2016.