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                       BIOINFORMATICS COLLOQUIUM
                    School of Computational Sciences
                        George Mason University
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                  An Introduction to Bovine Genomics:
             From QTL Mapping to the Bovine Genome Project

                           Curt Van Tassell
               USDA-ARS, Bovine Functional Genomics Lab
                            Beltsville, MD

                        Tuesday, April 12, 2005
                               4:30 pm
               Verizon Auditorium, Prince William Campus

With the ongoing bovine genome sequencing project well underway,
applications of cattle genomics will impact a broad range of fields from
basic biology to dairy cattle breeding. An introduction to the US dairy
industry and the structure of the commercial breeding population will be
provided with emphasis on phenotype data used for selection using
quantitative genetic methods and the relevance to quantitative trait
locus (QTL) (e.g., Lander and Botstein, 1989; Van Tassell, et al., 2000)
mapping. The emphasis will be on resources and tools needed to move from
the discovery of QTL through fine mapping to discovery of the underlying
causal mutation or quantitative trait nucleotide (QTN). An update on the
status of the bovine genome project (Gibbs et al., 2001) will be
provided with emphasis on SNP discovery and application. Finally, a QTN
validation project will be described where a recently described QTN for
DGAT1 in dairy cattle (Winter et al., 2002) was characterized in North
American germplasm.

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Refreshments are served at 4:00 pm.  Find the schedule and directions at
http://www.binf.gmu.edu/colloq.html