• Question: What question or challenge were you setting out to address when you started this work?

    Asked by anon-241335 to Ross, Natalia, Martin, Gabriela, Ellie, Chukwuka on 16 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Ross Alexander

      Ross Alexander answered on 16 Mar 2020:

      HI JS, great question and always good to remind us why it is we do what we do. For me it is the challenge of providing enough food for us to live as the climate changes due to global warming. That is is the “big picture”.
      On a smaller scale I am trying to figure out how to make plants much more tolerant to stress (in particular not enough water). I also have a project trying to work put how plants actually sense if their is water there.

      SO lots of different things for me. Hopefully important reasons

    • Photo: Martin Johnsson

      Martin Johnsson answered on 17 Mar 2020:

      I’ve worked on a few different projects that have different (but related) aims:

      I’ve been involved in a big project that adds whole genome sequence data (that’s when you look at all of the DNA in an organism together) into a pig breeding program, and the aims there was to find ways to make more precise selection decisions about what pigs to breed, and to find genetic variants that explain differences between pigs.

      In another project, we study the genetic influences on bone strength in chickens. Osteoporosis (that is, weak bones) is a huge problem in hens that lay eggs, and our aim is to help understand why some chickens have stronger bones than others.

      As some kind of overarching goal, all my research is about trying to understand genetics better, and use that information to improve animal breeding. That’s a big, and somewhat fuzzy, aim obviously, but that’s what drives what kinds of research I do. 🙂

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