Iowa State University is sponsoring a short course entitled DISEASE GENETICS: FROM CONCEPTS TO UTILISATION to be held June 2-6, 2014. The course will be led by Dr. Steve Bishop, Professor of Animal Disease Genetics, The Roslin Institute & Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh. The registration deadline is May 15, 2014.
This course aims to provide the attendee with the concepts necessary for an intelligent understanding of disease genetics, including the influences of disease epidemiology and biology, and the toolkit necessary to undertake research in disease resistance and apply the outcomes to breeding programs. The course is tailored for both animal geneticists and animal health specialists. Knowledge gaps that repeatedly are seen in both communities have been identified and the course will aim to fill these gaps, as well as develop areas of common interest. The target audience includes graduate students, researchers and professionals in both genetics and animal health. The course will benefit from having attendees with a mixture of academic backgrounds, disciplines and experiences.
The course will combine lectures with interactive group work and problem solving sessions and will cover: Introduction to disease biology, genetic analysis, epidemiology and their interactions, and issues often encountered in disease genetics, including:
- Resistance, tolerance, robustness, parasite evolution, sustainability, genetic diversity, disease risks
- Analysis and interpretation of disease data
- Practical implementation of breeding programs for disease resistance
- Case studies where resistance is either "simple" or "complex"
- Dissection of PRRS in pigs as a candidate disease for host genetic improvement
Further details and registration information at: http://www.ans.iastate.edu/stud/courses/short/
This short course is in part funded by USDA-NIFA Translational Genomics grant #2013-68004-20362