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ANIMAL SCIENCE REFLECTIONS (Open Access)

Reflections on genetic improvement

J. H. J. van der Werf https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2512-1696 A *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A School of Environmental & Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia.

* Correspondence to: jvanderw@une.edu.au

Handling Editor: Sue Hatcher

Animal Production Science 63(11) 925-930 https://doi.org/10.1071/AN23214
Submitted: 7 June 2023  Accepted: 7 June 2023   Published: 6 July 2023

© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Dr Helen Newton-Turner introduced a powerful model of bringing science into practice by working closely with breeders and the wider industry. This collaboration model has led to considerable achievements in genetic improvement in the Australian animal industries, with efficient genetic evaluation systems being implemented, providing a platform to achieve well defined breeding objectives and the introduction of new technologies such as genomic selection. The same model can be used to foster future development to achieve sustainable further improvements, allowing further technologies such as functional genomics to be used where they add value.

Keywords: animal breeding, breeding objectives, genetic improvement, genomic selection, Helen Newton-Turner, Quantitative Trait Loci, sheep CRC, University of New England.


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