News and Highlights
Animal Genomics labs, graduate students,
and their work
Pacific lion-paw scallop
and the work of Animal Genomics PhD student
Jessica Petersen
The Pacific Lion-paw scallop occurs naturally along both coasts of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico. Although it is subject to both fisheries and aquaculture, little is known about the biology of this unique species. The main goals of my work are to use molecular techniques to learn how to better manage this scallop in two very different environments, the wild and in aquaculture. In the wild populations, I am examining the natural genetic structure within and between aggregations; this information will be applied to
develop more comprehensive management plans and allow for continued monitoring of the species. In the aquaculture setting, I have studied the parentage of artificially induced mass spawns and am working to create a linkage map of the lion-paw scallop genome for use in identifying markers associated with growth traits. Work in aquacultural genetics of the lion-paw scallop are being performed in the hopes of enabling those in aquaculture to produce a highly-profitable product that does not negatively impact populations in the wild.
For more information about this work please contact Jessica at jlpetersen@ucdavis.edu or visit http://genome-lab.ucdavis.edu/People/Petersen/index.htm
Jessica with Journal of Heredity Journal with her paper
and its cover picture of lion-paw scallops
New!
Animal Biotechnology: The movie
About the movie
The public experience with animal biotechnology often starts and ends with Dolly the sheep, the first mammal ever cloned from an adult cell. The hype that surrounded Dolly rapidly became entangled with the debate over human cloning, and the ensuing discussion failed to elaborate on, or even differentiate between, the broad range of technologies encompassed by the ill-defined term "animal biotechnology". In the absence of information, animal biotechnologies tend to evoke a negative reaction. To address this knowledge deficit and the fact that few general audience educational resources about this topic have been developed by publicly-funded animal scientists, a 30-minute educational movie entitled Animal Biotechnology was produced.
The movie begins with a brief historical description of the development of various animal biotechnologies and places the most controversial of these technologies, cloning and genetic engineering, within that framework. Both biomedical and agricultural applications of animal biotechnology are discussed, in addition to some of the science-based and ethical concerns that are engendered by certain applications. Excerpts from interviews with leading academic and industry scientists in the field, conducted at the UC Davis Transgenic Animal Conference in 2007, are interspersed throughout the movie. The script and visuals underwent anonymous scientific peer-review prior to release.
The target audience for the movie includes college and high school students and interested members of the general public. To make the movie widely available to the general public, it will be posted on YouTube, the UC Davis Animal Biotechnology website, and DVD copies will be made available to educators and other interested parties at scientific and educational meetings.
-- read more at Dr.Alison L Van Eenennaam's Lab
Tom O'Hare, a graduate student in Mary Delany's lab, places chromosomes on a glass support for genetic analysis. Delany's lab is internationally recognized for its expertise in avian cytogenetics.
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