News 2018-02-11: 11th World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production

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. Nancy had the opportunity to give an oral presentation entitled “Genetic Parameters and Genomic Regions Associated with Growth Rate and Immune Response to Newcastle Disease in Local Chicken Ecotypes in Ghana and Tanzania”, during which she shared the main results of our NDV vaccine trials that were run in Ghana and Tanzania. Nancy also took advantage of various scientific sessions to learn about advances in methods, models and tools for genomic analyses, which is her main interest as a trainee quantitative geneticist. She also strengthened her professional network and had discussions with experts in the poultry industry about how these advances can be applied to breeding programs – particularly for smallholder poultry farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Jack Dekkers, Distinguished Professor at the Iowa State University was also invited to present the GIP research work.