When are Genomics Tools Useful?

Alison Van Eenennaam (University of California, Davis): The real value of genomics and the opportunity is that we'll be able to get genetic predictions on what's called hard to measure traits. These are traits like feed efficiency, fertility, disease resistance. For example, bovine respiratory disease is a very economically important trait in the beef cattle industry and we really don't have any good way to predict which animals are going to be less susceptible for that disease. Of course, in order for that to happen you have to have large training populations where you've got phenotypes on the trait, in this case feed efficiency or disease resistance, and genotypes on animals in order for you to be able to work out which SNPs are associated with the traits of interest. For example, which ones are associated with decreased susceptibility to the disease such that then you can submit DNA on an animal that you don't know anything about and get a genomic prediction for those particular traits.