Excellence in Breeding: developing breeding programs in Africa and South Asia
Posted 29th July 2019 by Jane Williams
Kelly Robbins is Assistant Professor at Cornell University. He started his career in animal breeding and later went on to work as a quantitative geneticist at a large private seed company. We spoke to him ahead of his presentation at the 7th Plant Genomics and Gene Editing Congress: USA.
I came to Cornell University as director of a large project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation called the Genomic Open-Source Breeding Informatics Initiative (GOBII for short).
With the cost of sequencing rapidly declining, it seems inevitable that routine of genomic information in breeding programs in Africa and South Asia will become more prevalent. However, there are certain capabilities, tools, and technologies that need to be in place to be able to exploit this type of information effectively and use it to drive higher rates of genetic gains.