Michel Georges supported by the ERC for his DAMONA project
Michel Georges, professor at the GIGA Research Unit / Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Liège, receives a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant for an important research programme on the processes of gene mutation and recombination.The data gathered from dairy cattle will also provide breeders with practical information.
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ofessor Michel Georges has just been selected by the European Research Council (ERC) to receive an ERC Advanced Grants. With a value of 2.258.000 Euros, for a period of five years, the project selected is entitled DAMONA, which means ‘divine cow’, a name inspired by a Gaul goddess of fertility. It will enable Michel Georges and his team to continue totally innovatory research into the processes of gene mutation and recombination. The researchers will build on the unique characteristics of dairy cattle to carry out their work.
The processes of mutation and recombination have a direct impact on phenotypes such as lethality and fertility, and are essential for an understanding of the evolution and adaptability of populations. ‘There remains much to be learned about the molecular mechanisms which control these fundamental processes, in particular in mammals,’ explains Professor Michel Georges.
One of the project’s original features is that it considers these processes as individual phenotypes, with different variations between the individuals, and identifies the precise genome regions which determine these inter-individual variations. The now very developed large scale sequencing and genotyping techniques allow these questions to be tackled as never before.
Over the course of the DAMONA project, the genomes of 400 bovines will be decrypted in their entirety and the genotype data of 60,000 other bovines will be collected. This information will constitute an exceptional database allowing the individual mutation and recombination rates to be determined, and potentially loss of function type mutations to be identified and validated.
The use of dairy cattle is one of the valuable aspects of the DAMONA project. The structure of existing pedigrees in bovines following the use of large scale artificial insemination allows genetic analyses which are inconceivable in human genetics to be carried out. Moreover, multiple phenotype data concerning millions of individuals are recorded systematically, allowing the direct evaluation of the impact of mutations and recombination on all of them, fertility in particular.
Professor Michel Georges also points out ‘that beyond new fundamental data on the processes of mutation and recombination, the DAMONA project will provide information of immediate interest for breeding programmes.’ The sequencing data of the whole of the livestock genome will be accessible from the 1000 Bull Genomes Project, thus making AMONA an essential contributor to the global attempt to improve genetic selection. The data generated by DAMONA will enable the development of new genetic test for embryo lethality which will help farmers and breeders to reduce their risky couplings.
About Michel Georges’s research
Professor Michel Georges’ Laboratory (University of Liège) is one of the world leaders amongst research groups examining animal genetics and genomics. It is at the origins of new cutting edge knowledge on genotype-phenotype relationships in different animal populations.
Its work concerns numerous domains: the coat colour in livestock, sheep muscular hypertrophy, porcine muscular growth sensitivity to ciliary disease amongst dogs, sensitivity to ciliary disease amongst dogs, For livestock, the researchers have identified the genetic foundations of phenotypes of valuable agronomic interest, such as muscular hypertrophy or milk production capacity. The group as exceptional skills in quantitative genetic analysis, and launched the use of high density SNP chips and gene selection for breeding programmes. More recently the researches have also obtained important results in the study of Crohn’s disease, a complex human genetic disease.
ERC Advanced Grants
The ERC Advanced Grants are one of the major instruments deployed by the European Research Council to fund very high level research projects. The extremely selective process (13% of projects selected out of 2304 submitted in 2012) only supports the best projects, known as high gain, high risk, in other words projects in which senior researchers have both the audacity and the skills to follow novel research paths which in the case of success are likely to greatly enrich knowledge.
Michel Georges is one of the 302 senior researchers chosen in the latest European Research Council selection process. He is the only francophone Belgian. He is the first ULg researcher to receive an ERC Advanced Grant.
