After a day and a half at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference (PAG), I'm more convinced than ever that Performagene•LIVESTOCK will expedite advances in livestock genetic science. We've had researchers from both livestock and crop applications come by our booth to ask about the Performagene•LIVESTOCK product and how they can use it in their studies. The most frequent comment we're hearing from attendees is that it is very difficult to get producers to comply with their research studies. This is often due to the high cost of having a veterinarian do a blood draw and the invasive nature of this type of collection.

UPDATE: Performagene⋅LIVESTOCK is no longer available, it has been replaced by PERFORMAgene

Blood has typically been the preferred method for collecting DNA from livestock for research studies (compared to hair follicles or ear punches) due to the quality and quantity of DNA in the sample. Here at PAG, livestock and crop researchers have learned that Performagene•LIVESTOCK's nasal sample collection kit provides equal quality DNA to blood and sufficient quantity to run multiple assays while still providing the researcher with enough raw sample to bank for future projects. All this is achieved with a completely non-invasive DNA collection method. This is a first for the livestock industry.

Yesterday I presented DNA Genotek's poster titled: "High Yield, High Quality Genomic DNA From Cattle Nasal Samples Using Performagene•LIVESTOCK". The people attending this poster session were excited about the results we obtained from nasal samples compared to blood and tail hair. This poster shows that the Performagene•LIVESTOCK DNA collection method yields a high quantity and high quality of genomic DNA. This study reports that the purified DNA is suitable for any downstream application and that DNA collected from nasal samples performs the same as DNA from blood.

Finally, the day ended on a very positive note with Genome Alberta announcing that they will be allocating $5 million in competitive research grants for livestock genetic research. This is particularly exciting for us as the majority of livestock genetics experts recognize that as downstream applications become more complex, tail hair isn't sufficient to satisfy assay requirements. Performagene•LIVESTOCK is designed for just these types of applications as it offers decreased hands on time to process the sample and results in DNA of high quality suitable for all downstream applications.

It's been a great start to this conference and I'm looking forward to the rest of the day.