Name:

Professor Bruce Weir

University:

University of Washington

Country:

Seattle, USA

Biography:

Title of Paper to be Presented: Whole-genome association mapping: statistical genetic issues.

Bruce Weir is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington and adjunct Professor of Statistics at the University of Auckland. A native of New Zealand, he received his PhD in statistics and genetics from North Carolina State University. He has served on the faculty at Massey University and at North Carolina State University where he was founding Director of the Bioinformatics Research Centre.

Bruce Weir’s research interests are in statistical genetics. He is author of the textbook “Genetic Data Analysis” and of over 200 scientific papers.  Recently he has been involved with whole-genome association mapping: he directs the Coordinating Centre for the GENEVA project, a consortium of 14 whole-genome studies. His talk will expand on his 2008 paper “Linkage disequilibrium and association tests” (Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 9:129-142).
 

Name:

Assoc Prof Duane Falk

University:

University of Guelph

Country:

Canada

Biography:

Title of paper to be presented: Population Breeding - generating and maintaining diversity at the elite level in breeding self-pollinated crops

Name:

Isobel Parkin

University:

Agriculture and Agri-Food, Saskatoon.

Country:

Canada

Biography:

Name:

Dr Wolfgang Ecke

University:

Georg-August University Gottingen

Country:

Germany

Biography:

Title of paper to be presented:  Linkage disequilibruim and association mapping in canola quality winter rapdeseed (B. napus L.)

Wolfgang Ecke studied Biology at Ruhr-University Bochum. After graduating he specialized in plant molecular genetics and received his PhD from Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf in 1989.

In 1990 he took up a position at the Institute of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, today a part of the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Göttingen. Wolfgang is leading a group dedicated to marker development, genetic mapping and genomics in rapeseed.

He has been involved in the development of genetic maps in rapeseed, the mapping of the two erucic acid genes of rapeseed and the major QTL for glucosinolate content as well as QTL for oil content and other quality traits of rapeseed. He is currently involved in the analysis of linkage disequilibrium and the development of association mapping in rapeseed.
 

Name:

Dr Derek Lydiate

University:

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Country:

Canada

Biography:

Title of paper to be presented: Brassica napus and the gene pool it can access

Name:

Professor Brian Cullis

University:

The University of Sydney

Country:

Australia

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: Modelling of additive and non-additive genetic line effects in field trials using pedigree based inter-line realtionships.

Brian Cullis heads the Biometrics group in NSW DPI and is an adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney.

He joined NSW DPI in 1978 and was appointed as a biometrician at Wagga Wagga and Tamworth, until his appointment as Research Leader (Biometrics) in 1994. His early work in spatial analysis was focussed on developing improved methods for the analysis of field experiments and he is internationally recognised as an expert in the analysis of field experiments using spatial techniques.

Brian began a very fruitful collaboration in the early 1990's with Professor Robin Thompson and Dr Arthur Gilmour. This collaboration has led to not only many scientific articles and conference talks but has been the catalyst and motivation behind the development of the software package known as ASReml. ASReml is a fortran program which fits the linear mixed model using REML. It is based on the Average Information algorithm which has revolutionised the types of problems and size of data-sets which are now considered. ASReml is marketed world wide by VSN International.

His other main area of research interest is focused on the analysis of a series of crop variety trials, commonly known as multi-environment trials (METs). Methods developed by him are now the basis of the protocols which are in widespread use for the analysis of plant improvement data in Australia.
Brian is based at the Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute.

Name:

Dr Regine Delourme

University:

INRA – Agrocampus Rennes University

Country:

France

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: Association mapping in oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) - a case study on quantitative resistance for Leptosphaeria maculans.

Dr Regine Delourme’s general area of expertise is in the field of molecular mapping and application of genomics in genetic analyses and quantitative genetics. After a PhD degree in plant genetics and breeding, Regine developed research on oilseed rape at the Genetics Department of INRA.

She has been strongly involved in the development and integration of different genetic maps of oilseed rape including various types of molecular markers and using Arabidopsis genomic data. She developed genetic studies on simple traits such as fatty acid composition, dwarf Bzh gene, and was involved in the map-based cloning of the radish restorer Rfo gene and the oilseed rape cleistogamous Clg1 gene.

Dr Regine Delourme has expertise in genetic studies applied to complex traits involved in development (height, earliness), seed quality (oil, protein, glucosinolate contents) and disease resistance (resistance to Leptosphaeria maculans, Pyrenopeziza brassicae and Plasmodiophora brassicae) with special emphasis on quantitative genetics through QTL linkage and association mapping.
 

Name:

Assoc Prof Wallace Cowling

University:

The University Of Western Australia

Country:

Australia

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: Associaiton mapping - a new approach to reverse the loss of genetic diversity in self-pollinating crops.

After graduating in Agricultural Science from Melbourne University in 1975, Wallace Cowling studied for the PhD in Plant Pathology at the University of California at Davis, completed in 1980.  Plant breeding (in particular disease resistance) has dominated his career since that time, starting with a CSIRO Postdoctoral Studentship at Cornell University and then as a lupin breeder in the Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia. 
In February 1999 Wallace took up the position of Associate Professor in Plant Breeding at The University of Western Australia, where he is now Deputy Director of the new International Centre for Plant Breeding Education and Research.  In addition, he is a Research Director in the company Canola Breeders Western Australia Pty Ltd, which is attached to UWA.

As a practicing plant breeder, Wallace has released several commercial lupin and canola varieties and his first hybrid canola variety in 2009.  He has published widely in plant breeding and pathology with more than 50 journal papers, and his research interests now are heading towards the application of molecular genetic association to crop breeding. 

Wallace’s goal is always to make plant breeding more efficient and to ensure there is sufficient genetic diversity to sustain our breeding into the future. Hence this conference - attempting to bridge the gap between plant breeders and the lofty world of association molecular geneticists."
 

Name:

Dr Rod Snowdon

University:

University of Giessen

Country:

New Zealand

Biography:

Title of paper to be presented: Regional association analysis in oilseed rape by market saturation in sequenced QTL regions.

Rod Snowdon studied plant genetics at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand and completed a PhD in Brassica molecular cytogenetics at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany in 1997.

He then became a faculty member in the Department of Plant Breeding at the same university in 2002 and established a research group working broadly on molecular breeding, genetic mapping and genome analysis in oilseed rape. The central research focus is on functional genomics approaches for analysis of quantitative traits, including antinutritive seed compounds, abiotic stress and disease resistance, seedling development, heterosis and seed yield.

Since 2009 Rod has been coordinating a German-English-Canadian consortium investigating “associative gene expression analysis” and systems genetics of complex traits in oilseed rape/canola using next-generation sequencing data.
 

Name:

Dr Dave Edwards

University:

University of Queensland

Country:

Australia

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: Future technology for Brassica associatioin mapping.

Dr David Edwards gained an Honours degree in agriculture from the University of Nottingham in 1989 and a PhD from the Department of Plant Science, University of Cambridge, UK in 1997. He has held positions within academia (University of Adelaide, Australia; University of Cambridge, UK; and McGill University, Canada), government (Long Ashton Research Centre, UK, Department of Primary Industries, Victoria, Australia) and industry (ICI seeds, UK).

David moved to The University of Queensland, Australia in 2007 as an Associate Professor. David is a Principle Research Fellow and leads the bioinformatics focus group within the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics.

David’s areas of interest include applied agricultural biotechnology, the structure and expression of plant genomes, the discovery and application of molecular genetic markers and applied bioinformatics, with a focus on wheat, barley and Brassica crops.
 

Name:

Dr Graham King

University:

Rothamsted Research

Country:

United Kingdom

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: Exploiting associations between genetic, environmental and epigenetic components of crop traits.

Graham King is currently Deputy Scientific Director of the Centre for Crop Genetic Improvement at Rothamsted Research. In 2004 he was appointed Professor in the University of Warwick and seconded to WHRI at Wellesbourne, where he had previously worked since 1986 leading research into crop trait genetics and comparative genomics. The crops in which he has worked include vegetable and oilseed brassicas, apple and tomato.

He has wide experience in molecular and quantitative genetics, genomics and computational biology, and has developed and characterised a range of Brassica genetic and genomic resources underpinning crop improvement traits. These have including reference mapping populations, linkage maps and detailed analysis of QTL for physiological and developmental traits and fungal resistances.

He has led and been involved in physical mapping and sequencing of the Brassica genomes, and with colleagues at Wellesbourne initiated development of Diversity Fixed Foundation Sets (DFFS). Other work has included integration of information to allow navigation via comparative genomics from genetics loci to chromosome, development of crop genetics databases, leading analysis of resistance gene analogues and map-based cloning of an aphid resistance gene.

 Current research is focused on understanding the relationship between epigenetic marks such as DNA methylation, chromatin structure (nucleosome positioning) and the regulation of trait loci in crop species of polyploid origin. His group have a particular focus on developmental biology of seed development, and also collaborate with colleagues at Rothamsted and elsewhere on the genetic and developmental basis of quantitative disease resistance and plant mineral nutrition.

Dr King chaired the Multinational Brassica Genome Project Steering Committee (2005-7) and his lab is contributing comparative genetics and genomics bioinformatics expertise to the UK BBSRC funded contribution to the multinational B. rapa sequencing project, including serving information via the www.brassica.info website. He is project leader of the Defra Oilseed Rape Genetic Improvement Network (OREGIN), and is a member of the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC) Working Group on Comparative Genomics and Natural Variation.
 

Name:

Dr Ir.Guusje A.B. Bonnema

University:

Wageningen University

Country:

The Netherlands

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: Association mapping of metabolomic traits in Brassica rapa.

EDUCATION AND WORK EXPERIENCE

1980 - 1987    :    Wageningen Agricultural University, the Netherlands   
                               Ingenieurs (MSc.) Plant breeding.
1987 - 1990    :    Ph.D. Molecular Biology, New Mexico State University, USA.
1991 - 1993    :    Post doctoral position, INRA/CNRS, Toulouse, France.
1993 - 1996    :    Post doctoral position, department of Molecular Biology,
                               Wageningen Agricultural University, the Netherlands.
1996-2001    :      Post doctoral position, laboratory of Plant Breeding
                               Wageningen University, the Netherlands
2001-2006    :      WU-CAAS Joint PhD Program Manager (Wageningen University- Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences)
2006-present:      Assistant Professor, Brassica genomics, Laboratory of Plant Breeding


ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, BRASSICA GENOMICS, WUR PLANT BREEDING

Research theme of the group is genetic dissection of (nutritional-) quality and developmental traits in Brassica rapa using quantitative genetic approaches and genomic tools. This research is performed within a number of externally funded projects with different collaborators. In collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (KNAW-MOST funded), developmental characteristics and metabolic traits for improved human health are studied, with special focus on floweringtime and turnip formation. Towards this goal, several stable DH mapping populations have been developed, a Diversity Fixed Foundation Set of near 400 B.rapa accessions is developed for association mapping purposes, reference genetic maps are constructed, and many trait QTL are identified.  In collaboration with six academic groups and five Dutch breeding companies, the genetic mechanism underlying metabolic traits, like phytochemicals, will be unravelled in both the model species Arabidopsis thaliana (WU laboratory of genetics) and the crop species B. rapa. Recently a program to genetically dissect seed quality and seed vigour traits in Brassica’s by transcript profiling is initiated in CBSG 2012 in collaboration with PBI Canada.
 

Name:

Professor Robbie Waugh

University:

The Scottish Crop Research Institution

Country:

Scotland UK

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: Whole-genome association mapping in elite inbred crop varieties.

Robbie Waugh cites his main research interests as developing and applying state of the art genomics technologies to investigate the genetic control key traits in barley and potatoes, two major Scottish crops.  Born in Glasgow in 1959, he obtained his undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Strathclyde in 1981 before moving to Dundee where, in 1986, he obtained a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular genetics from Dundee University.  After a brief postdoc, in 1987 he took up a tenured position at SCRI, becoming the leader of the Genetics Department in 2005.  He plays a significant role in national and international organisations that promote and co-ordinate global research on wheat and barley including the International Triticeae Mapping Initiative and the European Triticeae Genomics Initiative.  He has published approaching 200 primary research articles in international peer reviewed journals.  His current research aims to:

•    Develop and exploit genomics and informatics technologies and resources, in conjunction with traditional skills in genetics and plant breeding, to identify genes underlying both simple and complex traits.
•    Explore the potential of Association Mapping in barley in an attempt to identify genes / loci in elite barley germplasm that control traits currently being manuipulated by UK breeders.
•    Genetically characterise morphological and developmental variation described in barley through the use of a collection of well characterised mutants
•    Investigate the genetic complexity of the barley transcriptome by expression QTL mapping and explore whether patterns of gene expression can be used as a surrogate to dissect complex traits.   
His group are also centrally involved in barley structural genomics through extensive BAC-end sequencing and applying novel approaches to connecting BAC contigs to the barley genetic map

Robbie Waugh’s research and some recent publications are described at http://www.scri.sari.ac.uk/RobbieWaugh.htm.
 

Name:

Professor Yong Pyo Lim

University:

Chungnam National Univerisity

Country:

Korea

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: Association Mapping in Brassica rapa.

Present Position:    Professor of Molecular Genetics and Breeding
                     Department of Horticulture
                     College of Agriculture and Life Science
                     Chungnam National University

Education Background
•     1984. 8. - 1987. 8.  University of Rhode Island    Ph.D. (Biological Science) 
•     1980. 3. - 1982. 2.  Seoul National University     MS (Horticulture)
•     1975. 3. - 1979. 2.  Seoul National University     BS (Horticulture)
    
Postgraduate Experience
•     1987. 9. - 1988. 6.  Post Doc. fellow, Biology Department, Yale University, USA

Employment Experience
•     1979. 3. - 1980. 2. Researcher, Horticultural Experimental Station AVRDC branch, ORD 
•     1982. 7. - 1983. 4. Researcher, KyungKi Province Experimental Station, ORD  
•     1983. 4. - 1984. 8. Researcher, Genetic Department, Agricultural Science Institute, ORD
•     1988. 6. - 1992. 3. Senior Researcher, Department of Genetics, Korea Ginseng and Tobacco
                       Research Institute
•     1992. 3.to date. Professor, Molecular Genetic and Genomics Lab., Department of
                       Horticulture, Chungnam National University
•     1999.4. - 2000. 9. Scientific Committee Member, Brassica 2000 (3rd International Society of Horticultural Science, International Symposium on Brassicas) 12th Crucifer Genetic Workshop
•     2000.9. - 2004.10 Organizer, Brassica 2004 Korea (4rd International Society of Horticultural Science, International Symposium on Brassicas and 14th Crucifer Genetic Workshop)
•     2004. 9. to data   Director, Korea Brassica Genome Resource Bank, Chungnam National University, Sponsored by Minster of Science and Technology, ROK.
•     2005.1.1 -2006.12.31.  Chairman, Multinational Brassica rapa Sequencing Project Management Committee
•     2006. 3. 1. to date  Director, Plant Genomics Institute, Chungnam National University
•     2006. 5  to date   Head, Department of Horticulture, Chungnam National University
•     2007.4. to date Director, the Korea National Plant Research Resources Center(KNPRRC), Chungnam National University, Sponsored by Minster of Science and Technology, ROK.
•     2007.8. to date  Director, Chinese Cabbage Molecular Marker Research Center (CMRC) Chungnam National University, Sponsored by Minster of Agriculture and Forest, ROK.


Thesis                                                                          
 - MS    Thesis: Studies on the colchicine-induced mutant in Zoysia grasses.
 - Ph.D. Thesis: Purification and characterization of a new class of DNA topoisomerase
                 from pearl millet mitochondria.
 

Name:

Dr Gregor Durstewitz

University:

Trait Genetics GmbH

Country:

Germany

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: SNP discovery and multiplex SNP genotyping in Brassica using the Illumina Golden Gare Platform.

PROFESSION: Molecular Genetics. Fields of interest: DNA analysis, Conservation Genetics.

EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

High School, June 1978, Jakob-Grimm-Gymnasium, Rotenburg (Fulda), Germany.
Military Service, 1978 - 1980.
B.S. in Biochemistry, University of Tübingen, Germany, 1983.
M.S. in Biochemistry, Free University of Berlin, Germany, 1987.
Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, University of Oregon, USA, 1996. Graduate Research and Teaching Fellow at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston. Topic: Genetics and Natural History of invertebrate O2 transport proteins.
Special Research Assistant, DNA Unit, US Fish & Wildlife Service Forensics Lab, Ashland, Oregon, USA, 1996 - 1997. Genetic analysis of population dynamics and habitat fragmentation in North American bears.
Postdoc, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany, 1997 – 1998. Genetic analysis of energy metabolism in Yarrowia lipolytica.
Postdoc, Technical University Munich, Germany, 1999 – 2002. SNP-based DNA signatures for animal identification and biodiversity studies.
Scientist, SNP genotyping lab, TraitGenetics GmbH , Germany, since 2002. SNP discovery and high throughput genotyping in animals and plants.

Name:

Dr Ben Hayes

University:

Victorian Department of Primary Industries

Country:

Australia

Biography:

Title of Paper to be presented: Application of genome-wide association studies to improvements in animal breeding.

Dr Ben Hayes has extensive research experience in genetic improvement of livestock and aquaculture species, with a focus on integration of molecular information into breeding programs. 
He is currently leading a group or researchers at Biosciences DPI of quantitative geneticists, bioinformaticists and computer programmers. 

Ben Hayes  is author and co-author of book chapters and papers contributing to knowledge of genetic mechanisms underlying quantitative traits, linkage and linkage disequilibrium mapping and marker assisted selection in livestock and aquaculture species.