Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (1) Dr. George R. Wiggans, Acting Research Leader Bldg. 005, Room 306, BARC-West (main office); (fax) (personal office, Room 322) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (2) Mission l Discovery and development of improved methods for genetic and genomic evaluation of economically important traits of dairy animals w Yield (milk, fat, and protein) w Conformation (overall and individual traits) w Longevity (productive life) w Fertility (conception and pregnancy rates) w Calving (dystocia and stillbirth) w Health (resistance to disease and heat stress) w Feed efficiency

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (3) U.S. dairy background l 9 million cows l Attempt to have a calf born every year l Replaced after 2 or 3 years of milking l Breeding through artificial insemination (AI) l Popular bulls have 10,000+ offspring l Cows can have many progeny though superovulation and embryo transfer

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (4) U.S. dairy population and milk yield

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (5) Trend for DHI Holsteins

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (6) Dairy cattle traits evaluated by USDA YearTrait 1926Milk & fat yields 1978Protein yield, conformation (type) 1994Productive life, somatic cell score (mastitis resistance) 1999Calving ease 2003Daughter pregnancy rate 2006Stillbirth rate, bull conception rate, milking speed 2009Cow and heifer conception rates, genomic evaluation 2012Mobility, calving-to-insemination interval

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (7) Benefit of genomics l Determine value of bull at birth l Increase accuracy of selection l Reduce generation interval l Increase selection intensity l Increase rate of genetic gain

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (8) Why genomics works for dairy cattle l Extensive historical data available l Well-developed genetic evaluation program l Widespread use of AI sires l Progeny-test programs l High-value animals worth the cost of genotyping l Long generation interval that can be reduced substantially by genomics

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (9) Project D l Improving genetic predictions in dairy animals using phenotypic and genomic information w Objective 1: Expand national and international collection of phenotypic and genotypic data w Objective 2: Develop more accurate genomic evaluation system with advanced, efficient methods to combine pedigrees, genotypes, and phenotypes for all animals w Objective 3: Use economic analysis to maximize genetic progress and financial benefits from collected data

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (10) Recent accomplishments l Introduction of free genetic tests for inherited defects of dairy cattle l Development of a genomic mating program for dairy cattle l Development of international genomic evaluations for young bulls l Identification of specific chromosomal regions with significant effects on economically important traits l Determination of accuracy improvement for genomic evaluations through use of more DNA markers

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (11) AIPL staff l Laboratory w 4 SYs w 6 support scientists w 4 IT specialists w 1 PSA l On-site collaborators w Council of Dairy Cattle Breeding (2 consultants) w National Association of Animal Breeders (1 postdoctoral researcher)

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (12) George Wiggans l Ph.D., Cornell University, 1978 l Genomic data collection, quality, and management l Development of special-purpose genotyping chips l Enhancement of genomic evaluation methods

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (13) Paul VanRaden l Ph.D., Iowa State University, 1986 l Development of genomic evaluation methods l Imputation of missing genomic data l Dominance, epistasis, and imprinting of marker effects l Fine mapping of causative mutations

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (14) John Cole l Ph.D., Louisiana State University, 2003 l Visualization of genomic data l Use of haplotypes in breeding programs l Genetic evaluation of health and fertility l Development and enhancement of genetic- economic selection indexes

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (15) Derek Bickhart l Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 2010 l Identification of genetic variants using full-sequence genomic data l Tools to exploit DNA sequence data to find new markers and disease loci l Enhancement of genomic evaluation methods

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (16) Chuanyu Sun (NAAB) l Ph.D., China Agricultural and Aarhus Universities, 2009 l Mating programs with genomic relationships and dominance effects l Increased long-term response to genomic selection by selecting for favorable alleles l Improved prediction ability for genomic selection by including dominance effect

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (17) Adriana García-Ruiz l Ph.D. candidate, UNAM, México l Graduate student visiting jointly with Bovine Functional Genomics Laboratory and AIPL l Genomic determination of similarity between Mexican and U.S. Holsteins

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (18) CDCB NFCA l CDCB responsible for receiving data, computing, and delivering U.S. genetic evaluations for dairy cattle l USDA responsible for research and development to improve the evaluation system l CDCB and USDA employees co-located in Beltsville

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (19) CDCB consultants l Duane Norman, interim administrator (retired AIPL RL) l Leigh Walton, interim technical applications manager (retired AIPL IT section leader)

Wiggans, 2013RL meeting, Aug. 15 (20) Current AIPL research group