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Dr. Jamie Courter is your Mizzou Beef Genetics Extension Specialist

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By Jared E. Decker Many of you have probably noticed that things have been a lot less active on the A Steak in Genomics™   blog, but you probably haven't known why. In January 2021, I was named the Wurdack Chair in Animal Genomics at Mizzou, and I now focus on research, with a little bit of teaching. I no longer have an extension appointment. But, with exciting news, the blog is about to become a lot more active! Jamie Courter began as the new MU Extension state beef genetics specialist in the Division of Animal Sciences on September 1, 2023. I have known Jamie for several years, meeting her at BIF when she was a Masters student. I have been impressed by Jamie in my interactions with her since that time.  Dr. Courter and I have been working closely together the last 6 weeks, and I am excited to work together to serve the beef industry for years to come! Jamie holds a bachelor’s degree in animal science from North Carolina State University and earned a master's degree in animal
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Hair Shedding Research Available

 Happy to submit our Hair Shedding manuscript for publication. Preprint is available at bioRxiv

 https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.14.520472 

This is an exciting manuscript. It represents the work of many collaborators, especially farmers and ranchers. I made a lot of great friends through this project.

The science is exciting. The large, multi-breed sample size worked well to identify associations and genetic interactions with hair shedding. We were also able to make accurate genomic predictions of hair shedding for multiple breeds.

I also think hair shedding scores are a valuable management tool. Cows who shed late tend to have poorer nutrition or are stressed in some way. 

Data has been submitted to Dryad and should be publicly available soon. Data is not published yet, but in a few weeks it will appear at this address: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ngf1vhhz4 

Harly Durbin Rowan deserves the lion's share of the credit for managing this project, working with farmers and ranchers, analyzing the data, and writing it up. This allowed Harly to develop a very unique set of skills. Awesome job Harly!!!


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