Symposium: A single-step toward the future

This in-person symposium is designed to be full of thought-provoking talks that will help to blueprint a ten-year plan for future research in Animal Breeding and Genetics. This involves the future of single-step genomic evaluations, selection for complex traits like mortality/morbidity and resilience/robustness, possible negative effects of genomic selection, and other relevant topics. Discussions will also involve experiences with machine learning for phenotype and breeding value predictions, high throughput phenotypes, gene editing, and sequence data. Speakers will be from academia and industry (to be announced in January 2025).
The symposium will celebrate Ignacy Misztal’s career and achievements in Animal Breeding and Genetics as he takes his first step toward spending more time on his hobbies and less time at the University of Georgia.

When and where
Date: April 8 and 9, 2025
Location: UGA Center for Continuing Education & Hotel, 1197 South Lumpkin Street, Athens, GA 30602
Registration: Use the link provided below
Intended audience: Academia (Professors, Researchers, Postdocs, and Graduate Students) and Industry.
Mode: In-person only

General information
There will be 30-minute invited talks.
We will host a poster session on the evening of April 8. There is no abstract submission. Just bring your poster so you can have a nice time discussing your work with other participants.

Registration deadline:
March 31, 2025

Registration link:

Click here to register

Final Program:
Click here to see the final program

Confirmed Speakers and Topics:

• Daniel Gianola / Keith Bertrand / Larry Benyshek: First steps of Ignacy Misztal in the US
  

• Troy Rowan / Kelli Retallick / Chuck Sattler: Issues in the animal industry: Beef and Dairy
  

• Jesus Arango / Vivian Breen / Matt Culbertson / Tom Rathje / Egbert Knol: Issues in the animal industry: Poultry and Swine
  

• Tom Lawlor: Joint work with Ignacy Misztal over the years: what worked and what did not
  

• Andres Legarra: Experiences with single-step development and other complex models
  

• Tom Druet: Understanding and predicting complex traits using sequence data
  

• Paul VanRaden: Future directions for animal breeders
  

• Agustin Blasco: Complex relationship among traits
  

• Nicolas Bedère: Selection for resilience and robustness
  

• Todd Applegate: Reasons behind poor disease resistance in animal populations
  

• Pete Hansen: Misztal-dependent and Misztal-independent strategies for increasing genetic resistance to heat stress in dairy cattle
  

• Fernando Di Croci: Challenges at the farm level
  

• Tomas Norton: The promise of digital phenotyping
  

• Scott Jackson: What we can learn from plant breeding
  

• Brenda Murdoch: Genomic technologies
  

• Ignacio Aguilar / Ching-Yi Chen / Olga Ravagnolo / Jorge Hidalgo / Miguel Perez Enciso: Lessons learned from Ignacy Misztal
  

• Matias Bermann: BLUPF90 News
  

• Daniela Lourenco: Future at UGA
  

• Francis Fluharty: Closing remarks
  

Cost:
$250

Social activities included:
April 8th
Breakfast: 7:30-8:45 a.m. Lunch: 12:00-1:30 p.m. Dinner: 7:00 p.m. 30-minute breaks at 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

April 9th
Breakfast: 7:30-8:45 a.m. Lunch: 12:00-1:30 p.m. Dinner: 6:30 p.m. 30-minute breaks at 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Housing:

Logistics:

Airport Shuttle

Athens information: