Lunch Symposia
Monday 4 July – 12.00-13.30 | Fluidigm
Design and validation of high-throughput real-time PCR systems for detection of porcine and bovine respiratory and enteric pathogens using the BioMark platform.
Respiratory and enteric diseases in pigs and cattle can have significant negative influence on animal health, welfare and productivity. Pathogen detection using real-time PCR assays performed on traditional platforms are costly and time consuming. To mitigate these limitations, we have designed and developed different high-throughput real-time PCR for detection of respiratory and enteric viral and bacterial pathogens of high importance to Danish pig and cattle production. Want to learn more, please join our lunch meeting.
Tuesday 5 July – 12.00-13.30 | GENUS
A More Sustainable Food System Starts with Better Breeding
In order to supply enough healthy accessible food to sustain societies globally, we must meet the needs of farmers, the food system and ultimately, the consumer. Join Genus for a discussion about new breeding and genetic innovations which can provide solutions to address complex topics like animal, planet and human health.
Wednesday 6 July – 12.00-13.30 | Illumina
From parentage to understanding the milk microbiome, the use of high throughput DNA technologies in the breeding and health of dairy cattle
Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) is an agri-tech and dairy herd improvement co-operative dating back to 1909. Today, LIC provides herd testing services and delivers superior genetics, artificial breeding services, animal recording, parentage confirmation, and animal health testing while undertaking innovative research and development to provide innovative solutions to the dairy industry.
With over 10 million herd test samples coming through LICs doors every year, we are working towards understanding the milk microbiome and using such information to monitor individual cow and herd health. Research towards the ultimate goal of proactive animal health monitoring with minimal effort on farm has begun with shotgun sequencing of over 9000 herd test samples and 600 vat milk samples from over 250 farms across New Zealand. We have compared sequence data with traditional bacteriology and PCR-based testing. DNA sequencing results correlate well with these traditional testing methods while also allowing increased sensitivity and specificity.
With over 4000 species identified to date, this presentation will address how we are undertaking analysis, addressing the common challenges in understanding microbiomes and the unique challenges of working with milk samples in order to turn DNA sequence data into a meaningful understanding of how the milk microbiome varies by region, season, and farm management, and what this could mean in terms of animal health for the farmer. While this research is still in infancy, high throughput DNA sequencing to understand the milk microbiome appears to be a promising approach for revolutionizing the approach to animal health in the dairy industry.
Thursday 7 July – 12.00-13.30 | Bayer
Bringing animal and plant breeding closer together
During the Bayer Crop Science lunch session, we will present how we have adopted animal breeding theory and practices in our plant breeding programs. Next to this, we aim to discuss opportunities to further bring the disciplines of animal and plant breeding together.
Friday 8 July – 12.00-13.30 | LGC Biosearch Technologies
Accelerating molecular breeding in livestock production
Feeding the world in the midst of climate change and an ever-growing population demands scientists have access to scalable, flexible and sustainable genomic tools that further research and build solutions. At LGC Biosearch Technologies, we partner with leading scientists to empower them with fit for purpose technologies to ensure their mission critical projects are a success.
In this workshop, industry experts will be showcasing how innovation and creativity are being leveraged to overcome technical hurdles in the application of genomic technologies to solve the issues facing laboratories who are accelerating molecular breeding through high throughput genotyping with PCR and NGS.
Integrated tools. Accelerated science.