USU Vice President Receives Nearly $1 Million for Research

Utah State University Vice President for Extension and Agriculture and Dean of the College of Agriculture Noelle E. Cockett received approval for a $930,000 grant to support her research on the sheep genome.

 

The funding is provided from the United States Department of Agriculture – Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program, which awards funding for research, extension and education to address food and agricultural sciences.

 

“Noelle is an internationally recognized leader in the field of sheep genomic research,” said Ken White, animal, dairy and veterinary sciences department head. “This funding is an acknowledgment of this fact and will allow those efforts to continue at a much higher level.”

 

Cockett’s project, “Assembly of the Ovine Whole Genome Reference Sequence,” will be used to generate large amounts of DNA sequence from a single animal, which will then be assembled so it covers at least 95 percent of the sheep genome.

 

According to White, the completed information will be both a reference and a resource for other researchers who study the sheep gene sequence, and also enable them to better compare the sheep gene sequence to other species such as humans, mice and cattle.

 

“This is an important research project,” White said. “The outcome of her project will accelerate genetic research in sheep and other ruminant animals.”

 

 

Writer: Lisa Woodworth, 435-797-0810, lisa.woodworth@usu.edu