News 2016-02-15: Research Collaboration Visit to Iowa State Unive

In order to further enhance collaborative efforts between Iowa State University and the University of California, Davis. A graduate student Perot Saelao from UC Davis was sent to ISU in order to learn, collaborate, and standardize the analysis programs and software needed to begin working with the genotyping data obtained from the Hy-Line trial. Upon arrival at ISU in late February, collaborators Dr. Sue Lamont and Dr. Jack Dekkers, along with fellow graduate student Kaylee Rowland, held a meeting in order to discuss the expectations and goals of the visit. Kaylee and Perot then proceeded to conduct a thorough quality control processing of the raw data obtained from the 600K SNP panel using specialized software. Several days were invested in formatting and processing the data in order to obtain the optimal parameters and settings that would help to standardize the research methods being used. In addition, collaborative work between Melissa Herrmann and Perot also occurred in order to optimize analysis methods used on the RNA-Seq data obtained from the trial using the two inbred chicken lines. After effective data processing for the two research projects, Perot was also invited to provide a brief update on the work utilizing the Hy-Line Brown birds at the Hy-Line International headquarters. Finally, at the conclusion of the visit a detailed report and summary was presented to Dr. Lamont and Dr. Dekkers and further discussion on how to proceed with additional analysis and parameter settings to test once Perot returned back to UC Davis. Overall the trip was a great benefit to the research efforts occurring at UC Davis and significantly improved the collaboration between the two universities under the GIP program.