Duration: January 2023 – December 2025
Responsible: Sigbjørn Lien
Funding source: Horizon Europe (European Union)
Grant agreement number: 101094781
Summary:
The overarching aim of the EuroFAANG (European Functional Annotation of Animal Genomes) infrastructure is to facilitate research and innovation for genotype to phenotype (G2P) prediction in farmed animals (terrestrial and aquatic) to achieve sustainable, efficient and socially accepted farmed animal production in Europe.
This funding period reflects the concept development phase of the Research Infrastructure. Chief among the improvements required in animal breeding and management, to meet the challenges posed to future food production, is the ability to more accurately use an animal’s genetic code (genotype “G”) to predict its characteristics (phenotype “P”). “G” to “P” (G2P) research is very powerful, allowing, for example, prediction of how resilient certain animals will be to different diseases. This information can then be used to make efficient and sustainable breeding decisions and to tailor animal management practices. However, G2P research poses considerable challenges. On the “G” side, current FAANG efforts are progressively improving the genome annotation of terrestrial and aquatic farmed animal species. On the “P” side, existing research and phenotyping infrastructures work to gain more knowledge on complex phenotypic traits (e.g. how methane emissions could be reduced in farmed ruminants) and their genetic architecture, and to provide access to in vivo phenotyping tools and resources.
In order to fill the gaps between the “G” and “P” components, we need to be able to characterise highly complex traits as sets of intermediate informative phenotypes along the entire cascade from genome to cell, organism, environment, population and across different environments. To adequately face the challenges of G2P there is currently a gap in the European research and innovation infrastructure landscape for streamlining and managing the requisite data, resources and capabilities required by scientists and stakeholders in Europe. The EuroFAANG infrastructure “will address this research challenge at the European and global level” and contribute to increasing European excellence in G2P research.
CIGENE researchers involved: Sigbjørn Lien, Joseph Robertson, Matthew Kent