About the Role
A research opportunity is currently available with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), located in Beltsville, Maryland.
The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific in-house research agency with a mission to find solutions to agricultural problems that affect Americans every day from field to table. ARS will deliver cutting-edge, scientific tools and innovative solutions for American farmers, producers, industry, and communities to support the nourishment and well-being of all people; sustain our nation’s agroecosystems and natural resources; and ensure the economic competitiveness and excellence of our agriculture. The vision of the agency is to provide global leadership in agricultural discoveries through scientific excellence.
Research Project: Sequencing and assembly advances are, for the first time, enabling the generation of complete, gapless diploid reference genomes for mammalian species. These new telomere-to-telomere (T2T) methods are being applied across the ruminant suborder through a large collaborative effort known as the Ruminant T2T Project (RT2T). The project will generate complete assemblies to characterize heterochromatic regions and genomic repeats, non-coding RNA components, small RNAs, centromeres and transposable elements. A research opportunity is available in the Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory to contribute to these efforts. The fellow will join this collaborative effort with the opportunity to assemble genomes and perform comparative genomics analyses across ruminants, under the guidance of a mentor. These analyses could include, but are not limited to, chromosomal evolution and centromere dynamics, three-dimensional genome structure, and epigenetic landscapes. The RT2T Project holds the potential to revolutionize our understanding of ruminant genomic diversity, evolution, and adaptation. The outcomes will contribute to agriculture, conservation efforts, and advancements in medical research, benefiting both human and animal populations.
Other opportunities are available for the fellow to participate in ongoing pangenome projects in cattle, sheep, and goats. The fellow could contribute to assembling individual genomes, build pangenomes, and integrate T2T assemblies into both species specific and cross-species pangenomes with the goal of understanding how features found in individual T2T genomes vary across populations.
Learning Objectives: As a result of this training the participant will have the opportunity to improve their skills in bioinformatics, genome assembly, genome assembly assessment and validation, epigenetics, 3D genome structure, comparative genomics, and pangenome construction.