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Dr. Sean Myles, Assistant Professor in Dalhousie's Department of Agriculture and Canada Research Chair in Agriculture Genetic Diversity, leads one of the 17 projects that were funded in Genome Canada/Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)’s latest competition.

The $11 million competition was focused on bioinformatics and computational biology research projects to help manage, analyze and interpret vast amounts of genomics data to accelerate advances in personalized medicine, public health and other areas of importance to Canadians and the economy.

A future with safe and secure food requires the breeding of new disease resistant crops that provide higher yields and require fewer chemicals to grow. Current breeding practices have given us most of the food we enjoy today, but many of the current breeding methods are laborious, time consuming and expensive. New genomics technologies can help make the traditional breeding process more efficient, cost effective and accurate.

Dr. Myles and team are making sense of data generated from modern DNA sequencing technologies to develop user-friendly genomics-assisted breeding software that will quicken the development of better-tasting and healthier food. The software will also be able to be used in other areas of genomics research, such as forestry, bioenergy, conservation biology and aquaculture.