Agriculture & Agri-food

The goal of this proposal is to develop cost-effective and rapid methodologies that allow enhanced screening for specific Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) genomic sequences associated with increased virulence potential and/or the ability to survive in food processing environments in a manner that can be done by any trained laboratory personnel. Currently, there are no adequate existing […]

This project focuses on studying regulatory networks and molecular events in the developing embryo, endosperm, and seed coat affecting seed oil accumulation in canola and related crops. The outputs of the project will provide a better understanding of the overall metabolic events and their contributions to the process of oil accumulation. Since meal quality traits

The Canadian beef industry contributes more than $20B annually to the national economy, yet is challenged to remain globally competitive, use resources efficiently, and address human health concerns, climate change and environmental sustainability. This project will drive the adoption of genomic tools in the Canadian beef industry by generating more accurate breeding values in order

Pathogen contamination in meat has a very significant economic impact on the meat industry and a serious health impact for the public. Current testing protocols involve culture of material from meat products with serological or molecular confirmation. Since there continues to be recalls of beef after the product has been moved to the retail or

The consumption of food infected with diseases can lead to serious human health problems, violent gastrointestinal disease and potentially death, and to disastrous economic consequences to the agri-food industry due to food recalls. This project contains a research and development consortium composed of experts from academia, federal government agencies, food testing industry (PBR Laboratories Inc.),

Triticale, the only man-made crop, results from a recent hybrid between rye and wheat. Triticale is a high yield grain and biomass plant that has an excellent degree of adaptability to abiotic stress and resistance to numerous diseases plaguing other cereal crops in North America. The development of triticale as an industrial platform has been

This project aims to sequence the genome of Brassica species, including canola and assess genetic variation in the protein coding regions of the genome. This is a collaborative project involving the National Research Council, Agriculture and Agri‐Food Canada, and nine Industrial partners. The genomic resources developed from this project will be a major milestone in

A key to maintaining and improving Canada’s position as leaders in grain production lies in crop improvement, a field of research that increasingly uses genomic approaches to identify genetic factors involved in the climatic adaptation of particular crops. The project will focus on three economically important crops – wheat, barley, and rye. Drawing on extensive

The objective of this project is to improve the value of canola meal. Research for the DOTM project is divided into three major themes: 1) developing a strategy for lowering the fibre content of the seed coat of Brassica napus and the resulting canola meal, 2) understanding the genetics behind the yellow seed colour in

The goal of this project is to develop a powerful and efficient computing algorithm for whole-genome sequence association and prediction analyses. This project will provide the Alberta beef industry and research institutions with a powerful tool for fast integration of sequence information into genomic research and applications. Specifically, the newly developed algorithm and platform are