Blood sampling for IGF-1 feed efficiency test.

The Beef Industry Centre of Excellence has world leading expertise in livestock genetics, ruminant nutrition, meat quality, animal physiology, food safety, biometrics, economics and technology transfer.

Key technologies being developed at the Centre include quantitative and molecular genetics, muscle and fat biology, meat quality, feed conversion efficiency, green house gas measurement and abatement, economic analysis, adoption science, and decision support systems.

Key projects

Key projects currently in progress, and principal investigators, include:

Projects associated with the Cooperative Research Centre for Beef Genetic Technologies

• Proof of concept of meat quality gene markers (Dr Paul Greenwood)
• Phenotypic prediction (Dr Malcolm McPhee, Dr Peter Parnell)
• Feed efficiency gene discovery and expression (Dr Robert Herd, Dr Peter Parnell)
  

  Maternal productivity studies at the Beef Industry Centre

• Expression of genes related to feed efficiency (Dr Yizhou Chen)
• Maternal productivity (Dr Peter Parnell, Dr Robert Herd)
• Methane abatement (Dr Roger Hegarty)
• Industry awareness of beef genetics technologies (Bob Gaden)
• Accelerating adoption through Beef Profit Partnerships (Dr Peter Parnell)
• Monitoring and evaluation of economic outcomes of beef industry technologies (Dr Gary Griffith, Dr Andrew Alford)

Other key projects

Other Key Projects (principal investigator and funding source):

• Sheep Genomics Program – muscle biology (Dr Paul Greenwood; AWI & MLA)
• Myostatin alleles as production markers (Dr Paul Greenwood; MLA)
• Econometric models of the Australian Livestock Industries (Dr Gary Griffith, Andrew Alford; ARC)
• Reducing methane emissions and increasing livestock productivity by controlling rumen protozoa (Dr Roger Hegarty, Dr Simon Bird; Australian Greenhouse Office, Meat & Wool New Zealand)
• Measurement of energy expenditure in grazing cattle (Dr Roger Hegarty; Meat & Wool New Zealand)
• Collation of veterinary pathology image resources (Dr Barbara Vanselow; NSW DPI)
• Enhancement of BeefNomics (Robin Dobos; NSW DPI)
• Co-ordination of BREEDPLAN Technical Liaison Committee (Dr Peter Parnell; NSW DPI)
• National Beef Recording Scheme (Dr Peter Parnell; Agricultural Business Research Institute)
• More Beef from Pastures (Peter Parnell; MLA)

Publications

During 2006/2007 staff at the Beef Industry Centre of Excellence produced 46 scientific journal publications, 13 conference presentations, 62 extension/industry publications, 19 other communications and 18 media releases. 2006-07 publications list

Education

Current (June, 2007) postgraduate students, and their supervisors are:

• Andrew Doljanin, M Ec student (UNE) Co-Supervised by Dr G. Griffith
• Andrew Slack-Smith, M Sc student (UNE) Co-Supervised by Dr G. Griffith
• Baldwin Nengovhela, Ph D student (University of Queensland). Co-Supervised by G. Griffith
• Breige Allan-Greer, Ph D student (University of Queensland) Co-Supervised by Dr G. Griffith
• Dawn Nguyen, Ph D student (Monash University) Co-Supervised by Dr G. Griffith
• Grant Parnell, Honours student (UNE) Supervised by Dr Paul Greenwood
• Heidi Rodgers, Ph D student (UNE). Co-Supervised by Dr G. Griffith
• Linda Café, Ph D student (UNE) Co-Supervised by Dr Paul Greenwood
• Stephanie Knott, Ph D student (University of Melbourne) Co-Supervised by Dr R. Herd
• Stuart Mounter, Ph D student (UNE). Co-Supervised by Dr G. Griffith
• Wendy Brown, Ph D student (UNE ) Co- Supervised by Dr B. Vanselow