Charting the Road Map for Long-Term USDA Efforts in Agricultural Animal Genomics: Summary of the USDA Animal Genomics

Agricultural animal research has been immensely successful over the past century in developing technology and methodologies that have dramatically enhanced production efficiency of the beef, dairy, swine, poultry, sheep, and aquaculture industries. Most of this research effort has been conducted within the broad disciplines of genetics, physiology, and nutrition, but has become increasingly narrowly defined into multiple sub-disciplines over time. While a vast body of knowledge has been generated from this effort, it has now become clear that the majority of the potential for future improvements in animal production efficiency, quality of animal products, and animal health lies in the elucidation and understanding of interactions of the various components of the biology of the animal in concert with all of the parameters of the production environment. To begin to fully understand these interactions, a redirection of the traditional “reductionist science” approach to a “systems biology” approach is required.