Genetics of resilience and trade-offs

Within the framework of the EU project RUMIGEN (https://www.rumigen.eu/), we offer a 5-day course on “Genetics of resilience and trade-offs” with hands-on training, at Wageningen Campus from 28 October - 3rd November.

The course will review state-of-the-art theory and application of the concepts of resilience, robustness and trade-offs, with a focus on their implementation in breeding programs.

Course objectives:

Experts in animal breeding and systemic modelling and guest speakers will teach the latest theory and examples related to the concepts of resilience, robustness and trade-offs. Implementation of related traits in breeding programs and important challenges faced in these processes, will be discussed based on real use cases.

List learning goals:

• Increase understanding of the concepts of resilience and robustness.
• Understand how resilience can be measured from longitudinal data.
• Understand trade-offs and how their impacts can be mitigated.
• Being able to model genotype by environment interaction.

General Information

Target Group	PhD students, postdocs and other interested researchers
Group size	A minimum of 20 and a maximum of 40 participants
Course duration	5 days
Prior knowledge	Basic understanding of quantitative genetics and of mixed models.
Homework/ self- study	Practicals if they are not completed during the set time.
Language	English
Credit points	1.2 ECTS
Name lecturers/ facilitators	Nicolas Friggens (INRAE), Mario Calus, Roel Veerkamp (WUR)
Approach	The sessions will focus on teaching the background and theory, followed by hands-on training.
Teaching method	Lectures, workshops and presentations
Venue	Wageningen University campus, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
‍Background reading	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2023.101035 https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2018.00692 https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2019-17290 https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2020-19078

Programme

Day	Topic
Monday (from 12.00h)	Lunch, welcome and introduction General overview of the concepts and importance of resilience and robustness
Tuesday	Resilience: description of phenotypic approaches and relevance for trait definitions and breeding
Wednesday	Robustness and trade-offs: biological, genetic and modelling perspectives
Thursday	Genotype by Environment interactions: modelling perspectives
Friday (until 12.00h)	Participants’ workshop Lunch and departure

Fee (includes study and training material, coffee/tea and lunches)

Rumigen fee: Members of the Rumigen consortium	free
Reduced fee: PhD candidates and postdocs (non-Rumigen members)	300€
External fee: All other participants	500€

Cancellation condition

You may cancel free of charge up to four weeks before the start of the course. After this date you will be charged the University fee. Unless:

• You can find someone to replace you in the course and supply the course coordinator with the name and contact information of your replacement.
  In this case you will only be charged a € 50,- cancellation fee.
• For staff of Wageningen University: when you have a valid reason to cancel (illness or death in the family 1st or 2nd degree).
  In this case you will be charged the reduced fee.

 

Information

For more information please contact:

paddy.haripersaud@wur.nl, or wias@wur.nl