How the proposed research addresses regional and/or national priorities and in context of stakeholder input:

The poultry industry in the United States underpins the global food system providing an efficient, economical and nutritious source of animal-based protein (meat and eggs). The industry foundation consists of breeding companies and growers/producers distributed throughout the nation (and the world) with a heavy concentration in states from which the members of Multistate Research Project NC1170 are drawn (e.g., Arkansas, California, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Virginia). The USDA Economic Research Service reports that the U.S. poultry industry is the world’s largest producer and second-largest exporter of poultry meat and a major egg producer. The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service reported that the combined value of production from broilers, eggs, and turkeys in 2021 was approximately $47 billion. Many allied industries support and are impacted by the poultry industry, e.g., from grain producers and distributors to housing/cage manufacturers. Thus, the economic impact of the poultry industry to the financial health of the U.S. is enormous. The interactions of the poultry researchers involved in NC1170 with their stakeholders takes place via a variety of formats and opportunities so as to integrate our expertise with their needs and goals. These formats include, but are not limited to, organized informal meetings, workshops, and conferences (e.g., Poultry workshop at annual International Plant and Animal Genome meetings, annual National Breeders Roundtable, annual Poultry Science Association meeting), listservs, web-based tools/utilities useful to the industry, as well as collaborative ventures among research institutions and poultry industry businesses. Many NC1170 members have leveraged USDA-AFRI or other federal grants and have substantive collaborations with poultry breeders and producers. It is noteworthy that many NC1170 researchers not only utilize specialized poultry genetic lines for experimental analysis but also routinely employ commercially-selected foundational lines and crosses in their work.

The importance of the work, and what the consequences are if it is not done

Genetic improvements enabled the creation of a poultry industry that now produces the most widely consumed livestock commodity around the globe. The demand for poultry over the next decade is projected to increase even further as economic growth in certain regions drives the development of new markets. At the same time, the industry continues to face new and more complex challenges – rising feed costs, new disease outbreaks, changing climate – that threaten its ability to maintain production of an affordable and safe source of complete protein. The work of NC1170 focuses on using the power of poultry genomes to adapt to these challenges by making genetic improvements to chickens, turkeys, and other economically important avians. More specifically, NC1170 utilizes cutting-edge methods for genomics and bioinformatics to deeply mine poultry genomes and extract the pathways and molecular mechanisms that underlie phenotypes and determine how avians respond and adapt to their environment.  This work produces invaluable fundamental knowledge about poultry genomes, and it also provides the functional information that is needed to guide improvements in the industry’s breeding programs and management practices. These methods, and the sophistication in approach enabled by the expertise of this group, allow a depth of knowledge that is not achievable through individual efforts or more conventional research methodologies. The work of NC1170 will contribute knowledge needed to further adapt poultry to their environment, enhance disease resistance, improve welfare, and maintain efficiency of growth and reproduction. Because NC1170 brings investigators together with stakeholders, this work is tightly aligned with the needs of the industry. It is also important to emphasize that the work of NC1170 is important for training the next generation of the poultry workforce, particularly in the ‘omics tools and approaches that are fundamental to maintaining the industry. Undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral scientists, benefit from training in the labs of NC1170 investigators, and are exposed early on to the value of interdisciplinary solutions and the utility of new technologies. They also have opportunities to interact with other scientists and stakeholders through the activities of NC1170 members and through attending the annual poultry workshop. The importance of this role of our multistate group should not be overlooked.

The technical feasibility of the research.

The collection of investigators who participate in NC1170 are deeply entrenched in mining poultry genomes to benefit the poultry industry, and ultimately to feed the world. Some members of this multistate have been involved with sequencing and annotation of poultry genomes since the first draft sequence for chicken was published in 2004. Sequencing and analysis of both the chicken and turkey genomes was accomplished with the direction and collaboration of NC1170 researchers. NC1170 members are experts in their various fields, and collectively bring a breadth of technical expertise to the table. These investigators are at the leading edge of applying the latest ‘omics techniques to their work, often enhancing methods and analytical tools in the process. Because of the collaborative nature of this group and its productive history, these advances are readily shared with other members, keeping the group itself at the leading edge of poultry genomics. Each of the investigators has extensive expertise in poultry and avian biology, which enables them to recognize and utilize the wealth of opportunities that are presented by participation in in NC1170. The group includes domain experts in virtually every aspect of avian physiology, which enables the work of this group to be conducted from a systems perspective. The methods employed by the NC1170 investigators are state of the art techniques for genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics, for the purpose of exploring the fundamental biological mechanisms underpinning growth, development, physiology, nutrition, immunity and animal health. Efforts range among all scales, from fundamental to translational to applied. Due to the nature of ‘omics work, each investigator is well-versed in the skills needed to manage and mine very large datasets. Further, one can easily have confidence that the investigators involved in the NC1170 project will be at the forefront of development and application of new technologies during the next five-year project. 

The advantages for doing the work as a multistate effort.

Using advanced technologies to genetically improve poultry is an inherently interdisciplinary effort that requires expertise from multiple domains. A multistate effort is an ideal vehicle to bring together principal investigators who can contribute the needed knowledge from various disciplines to tackle a challenge as complex as improving poultry production. NC1170 brings together geneticists, genome biologists, bioinformaticians, physiologists, immunologists, nutritionists, etc. in a way that would be very difficult to achieve in the absence of a multistate group. Moreover, it creates opportunities for the group at large to interact and exchange information with stakeholders, so that the research efforts can be aligned with needs of the industry. In effect, the NC1170 project is a sophisticated research tool that enables a systems level approach to improvement of poultry that would be very difficult to achieve in the absence of the multistate mechanism. New goals of the industry can be more effectively addressed by the combination of resources available by the NC1170 team approach. The NC1170 researchers possess an exciting combination of expertise to create and contribute new tools and knowledge to apply to poultry improvement. And the ability to meet, interact, and share information and resources fosters an environment for multidisciplinary interactions needed to address the complex biological questions facing researchers today.

What the likely impacts will be from successfully completing the work.

The poultry industry will likely face new and potentially more complex challenges to its ability to continue to supply the world with an affordable source of complete protein during the period covered by this proposal. It is expected that the work of the NC1170 will continue to help the industry to combat these challenges by contributing new knowledge that can be used to enhance breeding strategies and management systems. These new strategies can in turn be applied to improve growth, development, immunity, and physiology, and to maintain the economic and environmental sustainability of the industry. In addition to these translational impacts, completion of this work will make a major contribution of new, fundmental knowledge about avian genomes, including their similarities and differences, that will be valuable to the scientific community at large.  Ultimately, completion of this work will support the production of an affordable, safe, and nutritious source of complete protein for the global population, while markedly advancing understanding of genome-to-phenome relationships in poultry.