The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh (UEDIN) undertakes basic and applied research focused on the genetics and health of farmed animal species, developing biotechnological innovations for the livestock and aquaculture industry.
The active and expanding Roslin Aquaculture Genetics research group aims to improve selective breeding of finfish and shellfish via a broad range of genetics and genomics approaches. The Roslin Institute is equipped with state-of-the-art genomics and bioinformatics facilities and expertise, enabling the application of the latest advances in modern high-throughput sequencing and genotyping techniques to help understand fundamental concepts in animal biology which are then applied to enhance animal breeding using genomic selection.
The Roslin Institute aquaculture team have substantial experience in developing research supporting adoption of genomic selection by aquaculture industries, in particular for Atlantic salmon where the technology is now most advanced.
“The results obtained in AquaIMPACT demonstrate the potential of using low-density markers and genotype imputation as a cost-efficient genomic selection strategy for aquaculture breeding programmes. I trust these results will benefit medium and low scale aquaculture companies for which the cost of genotyping using high-density SNP arrays is prohibitive, allowing them to implement genomic selection. We also demonstrated the interest of using genomic selection to increase rainbow trout resistance to columnaris disease in Finland, paving the way for more resistant fish in the coming generations.”, says Dr Clémence Fraslin, researcher at the Roslin Institute.
In AquaIMPACT, The Roslin Institute leads tasks related to development of technology to improve cost-effectiveness of genomic selection, and commercial scale implementation of genomic selection. This includes development of underpinning tools to support genomic selection (SNP arrays, low density marker panels), and testing genomic selection methods and the impact on selection accuracy.
