Macee (second from left) with collaborators from other institutions at the western social.

Kathy & Bailey enjoying the western social.

Dr. Clare Gill, professor of animal genomics, hosted the 35th conference of the International Society for Animal Genetics (ISAG) in Salt Lake City, Utah from July 23- 27, 2016.  It was the first time in 16 years that ISAG was held in the US, with almost 600 delegates from 47 countries in attendance.  Sharing the latest developments in creating and applying community genetic and genomic tools and resources to aid advancements in the productivity, health and well being of commodity species (i.e., cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, poultry and aquaculture) and companion animals was a major focus of the conference.  The conference began with a one-day, joint ASAS-ISAG symposium on the Functional Annotation of Animal Genomes (FAANG) with 22 other workshops.  Dr. Gill and her graduate students, Bailey Engle, Macee Prause, Kathy Scienski, July Xing, and Guosong Wang, all presented electronic research posters at the conference.  Bailey Engle was also invited to give a platform presentation, “Genome-wide association study for stayability measures in Nellore-Angus crossbred cows,” in the ruminant genetics workshop.  In the ISAG business meeting, it was announced that Dr. Gill was elected as a member of the ISAG Executive Committee for a 3-year term.

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For more information regarding news from the Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Texas A&M University, please contact Maggie Tucker at maggie.tucker@tamu.edu or (979) 845-1542.