My name is Kui Li, from the Lab. of Molecular Biology and Animal Breeding, School of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, P. R. China.
I agree with Drs. Olivier Hanotte [11 August], Adama Traore [16 August] and Bess Tiesnamurti's [16 August] comments about the importance of international cooperation of domestic animal genetic resources. Here, I just would like to present my opinions on how to conduct a successful international cooperation.
The international cooperation can be carried out very well and the comparable results can be obtained by organizing a large project, but it perhaps will be impossible because of the difficulties to find the large amounts of funds. Most likely, the international cooperation will be carried out on the basis of many small grants. In order to conduct this kind of international cooperation successfully, first of all, the standard methods should be defined because one of the major problems in genetic diversity evaluation of domestic animals is that different markers and even different statistical methods result in totally different results.Therefore, the same markers, the same methods for the sample collection, marker detection and data analysis should be recommended and used in all of the related studies. The MoDAD guidelines of FAO [MoDAD refers to Measurement of Domestic Animal Diversity - see DAD-IS http://www.fao.org/dad-is/ .....Moderator] are very important, but more guidelines should be recommended, such as the guidelines for SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) detection and analysis, the guidelines for the species still not included in the MoDAD guidelines.
Moreover, the basic data on production characters, population sizes and the history of breeds are also very important for the genetic characterization, thus the standard methods for collecting these data should be also defined.
Our group in China has been engaged in the genetic characterization of Chinese indigenous domestic animals for more than 6 years, some brief reports about our research results have been published in international journals already. We wish to join any kinds of international cooperation on genetic characterization of domestic animal genetic resources.
Kui Li, Ph.D.
Lab. of Molecular Biology and Animal Breeding
School of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary medicine
Huazhong(Central China) Agricultural University
Wuhan 430070
P. R. China
Tel: 86-27-87282680(lab.) 87281306(office), 87286071(home)
Fax: 86-27-87396057
E-mail: lkxblghi@public.wh.hb.cn
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