The University of Maryland, College Park will receive $650,000 under a four-year Project Grant from the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program. The grant will fund research into epigenetic regulation of chicken embryonic stem cells and primordial germ cells, which are precursors to sperm and egg cells essential for precision breeding and genetic engineering in poultry. Specifically, the...
This $650,000 Project Grant awarded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) (CFDA 10.310) supports research to improve the reproductive efficiency of poultry. The primary goal is to gain a deeper understanding of the formation and differentiation mechanisms of chicken embryonic stem cells into primordial germ cells and primordial germ cells into spermatogonial stem cells. This knowledge could lead to new...
This three-year, $650,000 Project Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) will fund research at The Ohio State University to improve poultry production efficiency. The University will pursue two objectives to test the hypothesis that retinoic acid (RA) has dual functions in poultry fat accretion. First, researchers will define the contribution of the retinol binding...
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) received a $515,000 project grant from the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program.
The three-year grant will fund research into how early post-hatch environmental stressors in chickens cause epigenetic modifications affecting behavior and stress responses. Virginia Tech researchers will use sequencing to...
This Project Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) will provide $650,000 to develop and validate CRISPR-based in vitro screening resources for chickens. The Pennsylvania State University will receive the funding from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2026 to establish and optimize CRISPR-based transcription activation and repression systems in chicken cell lines. They will...
The Agricultural Research Service will receive $650,000 from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program to fund a three-year research project examining the relationship between the thyroid and reproductive axes and its implications for egg production rates in turkey hens. The project aims to define the regulatory role of thyroid hormones in controlling hen egg production and characterize pituitary responsiveness...
The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awarded a $650,000 grant under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program to the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. to investigate the role of sclerostin (SOST) in regulating bone, muscle, and fat development in laying hens. The project aims to develop new strategies such as genetic selection or feed additives to improve bone health, body composition, and feed efficiency in the poultry industry. The...
This $300,000 project grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture will fund research at the University of Illinois to develop hyperspectral imaging technology for early prediction of chick sex and embryonic mortality in poultry hatcheries.
Approximately 300 million male layer chicks are culled annually in the U.S., considered a wasteful and animal welfare issue. The university will research using hyperspectral imaging and multispectral...
This $648,488 Project Grant was awarded on July 15, 2024 by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. The grant supports research to address higher poultry mortality and production efficiency issues on antibiotic/chemical-free backyard and integrated farms. The key objectives are to:
Investigate the sources and transmission of Avibacterium paragallinarum (AP) and Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) on these...
The University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. (UGA Research Foundation) was awarded a $749,434 Project Grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. The grant, which runs from June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2027, supports three research and extension objectives focused on pastured poultry farming systems: 1) analyzing chickens' diets and impacts on pests, beneficial insects, and weeds through molecular...