1. Functional Annotation of Animal Genomes (FAANG)
Ravi N. Ravindranath, Ph.D.
Fertility and Infertility Branch
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
National Institutes of Health

2. Is FAANG important for NIH?
Associating sequence variation with quantitative phenotypes has been done in domestic animals for a few decades because of the importance of animals :
As food sources
Models for human health/disease
Ecology

3. Exploring Horizons for Domestic Animal Genomics
Meeting was held at NAS in 2002
NIH perspective at the Meeting:
Sequencing is essential for basic scientific understanding
Sequencing is essential for human health and medical research
Reasons:
Understanding of human biology or physiology is based on domestic animal biology: Chicken embryology
Several methods developed in animals: IVF/Cloning
Disease models: Influenza

4. NIH Participation
Cattle Genome Project (Baylor College of Medicine), NHGRI
Horse Genome Project (MIT), NHGRI
Chicken Genome Project (Washington University), NHGRI
Although there is no direct involvement with Swine Genome Project, NIH has always been interested in Swine as a model for growth, development, and disease since the pattern of growth and development of pigs is more similar to human. Several individual projects have been funded by NIH over the years.

5. Models for Basic and Applied studies
Physiology
Nutrition
Pregnancy and fetal growth
Immunology
Organ transplantation
Infectious diseases
*Much less used as genetic models

6. From Genomes…… What is critically important:
Functional Annotation of these genomes is necessary for knowing what is conserved and what is not
Genome to phenome correlation
Easy access of data to the investigators

7. NIH-USDA Partnership: Research in Biomedicine and Agriculture Using Agriculturally Important Domestic Species (PAR13-204)

8. Priority Areas
Assisted Reproduction Technologies/Stem Cell Biology: Oocyte Biology; Embyro Competence and Viability; SCNT; iPSC; Transgenesis; Male Germline Development
Metabolism: Obesity
Developmental Origin of Adult Diseases: In- Utero Developmental Programming
Infectious Diseases and Applied Immunology

9. Projects of Relevance to FAANG Objectives
1. Pablo Ross, University of California, Davis; Epigenetic Control of Preimplantation Development (R01HD070044)
2. R. Michael Roberts, University of Missouri-Columbia; Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Swine: Application to Genetic Modification (R01HD069979)
3. Thomas Spencer, Washington State University, Pullman; Systems Biology Approach to understand Endometrial Receptivity and Pregnancy (R01HD072898)
4. Randall Prather, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. Modification of SCNT donor cell metabolism to mimic blastomere metabolism (R01HD080636)
5. Bhanu Prakash Telugu, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Generation of zoonotic influenza resistant recominant pigs via site-directed technology (USDA)

10. Questions? ravindrn@mail.nih.gov 301-435-6889