American Genetic Association

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Original plates of Darwin and Mendel from Volume 1, Issue 1 of the American Breeders Magazine, 1910. Darwinmendel.jpg
Original plates of Darwin and Mendel from Volume 1, Issue 1 of the American Breeders Magazine, 1910.

The American Genetic Association (AGA) is a US-based professional scientific organization dedicated to the study of genetics and genomics which was founded as the American Breeders' Association in 1903. [1] The association has published the Journal of Heredity since 1914, which disseminates peer-reviewed organismal research in areas of general interest to the genetics and genomics community. Recent articles have focused on conservation genetics of endangered species and biodiversity discovery, [2] [3] phylogenomics, molecular adaptation and speciation, [4] and genotype to phenotype associations.

Contents

History

The American Breeders Association held its first meeting in 1903 to discuss the “new” science of genetics that arose from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel’s discoveries of the laws of inheritance.[ clarification needed ] The organization was established “to study the laws of breeding and to promote the improvement of plants and animals by the development of expert methods of breeding.” [5]

In 1914, the American Breeders Association broadened its scope and became the American Genetic Association. Today, the AGA’s interests encompass evolutionary diversity and genomics across taxa and subject areas, including conservation genetics, phylogenetics, phylogeography, gene function, and the genetics of domestication. In 1965 it received a bequest from Wilhelmine Key to support a lecture series which bears her name. [6] [7] [8]

The AGA disseminates progress in these fields through its publication, Journal of Heredity . It supports research and scholarship through sponsorship of an annual President’s Symposium, special events awards, the Stephen J. O’Brien Award, and the Evolutionary, Ecological, or Conservation Genomics Research Awards.

The AGA is a 501(c)(3) corporation.

Annual meeting

The American Genetic Association’s annual conference, referred to as the President’s Symposium, is organized by the AGA president for that year. In recent years, these meetings have focused on a relevant or emerging theme in non-human genetics and genomics research.

A special issue of the AGA’s Journal of Heredity is devoted each year to publishing proceedings of the symposium. These special issues are available without a subscription from the AGA and Journal of Heredity websites.

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haldane's rule</span> Observation in evolutionary biology

Haldane's rule is an observation about the early stage of speciation, formulated in 1922 by the British evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane, that states that if — in a species hybrid — only one sex is inviable or sterile, that sex is more likely to be the heterogametic sex. The heterogametic sex is the one with two different sex chromosomes; in therian mammals, for example, this is the male.

In population genetics and population ecology, population size is a countable quantity representing the number of individual organisms in a population. Population size is directly associated with amount of genetic drift, and is the underlying cause of effects like population bottlenecks and the founder effect. Genetic drift is the major source of decrease of genetic diversity within populations which drives fixation and can potentially lead to speciation events.

Genetic viability is the ability of the genes present to allow a cell, organism or population to survive and reproduce. The term is generally used to mean the chance or ability of a population to avoid the problems of inbreeding. Less commonly genetic viability can also be used in respect to a single cell or on an individual level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sewall Wright</span> American geneticist (1889–1988)

Sewall Green Wright FRS(For) Honorary FRSE was an American geneticist known for his influential work on evolutionary theory and also for his work on path analysis. He was a founder of population genetics alongside Ronald Fisher and J. B. S. Haldane, which was a major step in the development of the modern synthesis combining genetics with evolution. He discovered the inbreeding coefficient and methods of computing it in pedigree animals. He extended this work to populations, computing the amount of inbreeding between members of populations as a result of random genetic drift, and along with Fisher he pioneered methods for computing the distribution of gene frequencies among populations as a result of the interaction of natural selection, mutation, migration and genetic drift. Wright also made major contributions to mammalian and biochemical genetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Synteny</span>

In genetics, the term synteny refers to two related concepts:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domesticated silver fox</span> Type of fox

The domesticated silver fox is a form of the silver fox that has been to some extent domesticated under laboratory conditions. The silver fox is a melanistic form of the wild red fox. Domesticated silver foxes are the result of an experiment designed to demonstrate the power of selective breeding to transform species, as described by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species. The experiment at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia explored whether selection for behaviour rather than morphology may have been the process that had produced dogs from wolves, by recording the changes in foxes when in each generation only the most tame foxes were allowed to breed. Many of the descendant foxes became both tamer and more dog-like in morphology, including displaying mottled- or spotted-coloured fur.

Dmitry Konstantinovich Belyayev was a Soviet geneticist and academician who served as director of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics (IC&G) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, from 1959 to 1985. His decades-long effort to breed domesticated silver foxes was described by The New York Times as “arguably the most extraordinary breeding experiment ever conducted.” A 2010 article in Scientific American stated that Belyayev “may be the man most responsible for our understanding of the process by which wolves were domesticated into our canine companions.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Introgression</span> Transfer of genetic material from one species to another

Introgression, also known as introgressive hybridization, in genetics is the transfer of genetic material from one species into the gene pool of another by the repeated backcrossing of an interspecific hybrid with one of its parent species. Introgression is a long-term process, even when artificial; it may take many hybrid generations before significant backcrossing occurs. This process is distinct from most forms of gene flow in that it occurs between two populations of different species, rather than two populations of the same species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labrador Retriever coat colour genetics</span> Genetics behind Labrador Retriever coat colour

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Population genomics is the large-scale comparison of DNA sequences of populations. Population genomics is a neologism that is associated with population genetics. Population genomics studies genome-wide effects to improve our understanding of microevolution so that we may learn the phylogenetic history and demography of a population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen J. O'Brien</span> American geneticist

Stephen J. O'Brien is an American geneticist. He is known for his research contributions in comparative genomics, virology, genetic epidemiology, mammalian systematics and species conservation. Member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Author or co-author of over 850 scientific articles and the editor of fourteen volumes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Popular sire effect</span>

The popular sire effect occurs when an animal with desirable attributes is bred repeatedly. In dog breeding, a male dog that wins respected competitions becomes highly sought after, as breeders believe the sire possesses the genes necessary to produce champions. However, the popular sire effect is not just down to wanting to produce a champion. For example, in Staffordshire Bull Terriers there are several popular sires who are used by breeders to produce specific colours that are not favoured in the show ring. The popular sire is often bred extensively with many females. This can cause undetected, undesirable genetic traits in the stud to spread rapidly within the gene pool. It can also reduce genetic diversity by the exclusion of other males.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant breeding</span> Humans changing traits, ornamental/crops

Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. It has been used to improve the quality of nutrition in products for humans and animals. The goals of plant breeding are to produce crop varieties that boast unique and superior traits for a variety of applications. The most frequently addressed agricultural traits are those related to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, grain or biomass yield, end-use quality characteristics such as taste or the concentrations of specific biological molecules and ease of processing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann T. Bowling</span> American geneticist (1943–2000)

Ann Trommershausen Bowling was an American scientist who was one of the world's leading geneticists in the study of horses, conducting research in the areas of molecular genetics and cytogenetics. She was a major figure in the development of testing to determine animal parentage, first with blood typing in the 1980s and then DNA testing in the 1990s. She later became known for her studies of hereditary diseases in horses and equine coat color genetics, as well as research on horse evolution and the development of horse breeds. She studied the population genetics of feral horses, did considerable work to help preserve the Przewalski's horse, and was one of the founding members of the international project to map the horse genome. She was an adjunct professor at the University of California, Davis (UCD), and at the time of her death in 2000 was the executive associate director of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory (VGL) there. Her unexpected death on December 8, 2000, at age 57 was attributed to a massive stroke.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert W. Allard</span> American geneticist

Robert Wayne Allard was an American plant breeder and plant population geneticist who is widely regarded as one of the leading plant population geneticists of the 20th century. Allard became chair of the genetics department at University of California, Davis in 1967; he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1973, and was awarded the DeKalb-Pfizer Distinguished Career Award and the Crop Science Science of America Award. He was honored as the Nilsson-Ehle Lecturer of the Mendelian Society of Sweden and as the Wilhelmine Key lecturer of the American Genetic Association. He also served as president of the Genetics Society of America, the American Genetic Association and the American Society of Naturalists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jose V. Lopez</span> American-Filipino molecular biologist

Jose V. Lopez is an American-Filipino Molecular Biologist. He has been a faculty and Professor of Biology at Nova Southeastern University (NSU). in Dania Beach, Florida since 2007. Lopez has contributed as co-founder of the Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA), a community of scientists. He has also participated in the "Porifera - Tree of Life", "Earth Microbiome" and Earth Bio-genome Projects.

Eukaryote hybrid genomes result from interspecific hybridization, where closely related species mate and produce offspring with admixed genomes. The advent of large-scale genomic sequencing has shown that hybridization is common, and that it may represent an important source of novel variation. Although most interspecific hybrids are sterile or less fit than their parents, some may survive and reproduce, enabling the transfer of adaptive variants across the species boundary, and even result in the formation of novel evolutionary lineages. There are two main variants of hybrid species genomes: allopolyploid, which have one full chromosome set from each parent species, and homoploid, which are a mosaic of the parent species genomes with no increase in chromosome number.

Ernest Robert Sears was an American geneticist, botanist, pioneer of plant genetics, and leading expert on wheat cytogenetics. Sears and Sir Ralph Riley (1924–1999) are perhaps the two most important founders of chromosome engineering in plant breeding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilhelmine Key</span> American biologist (1872–1955)

Wilhelmine "Minnie" Marie Enteman Key was an American geneticist. She was the first woman to gain a PhD in zoology from the University of Chicago, where she studied coloration in paper wasps. She contributed to the study of eugenics and was an influential teacher to Sewall Wright.

References

  1. "About the Association". American Genetic Association. American Genetic Association. 2022. Retrieved July 28, 2022.
  2. Bradley Shaffer; et al. (2022). "Landscape genomics to enable conservation actions: the California Conservation Genomics Project". Journal of Heredity . 113 (6): 577–588. doi: 10.1093/jhered/esac020 . PMID   35395669.
  3. Oliver A Ryder; et al. (2021). "Facultative parthenogenesis in California Condors". Journal of Heredity . 112 (7): 569–574. doi:10.1093/jhered/esab052. PMC   8683835 . PMID   34718632.
  4. Rosemary G Gillespie; et al. (2020). "Comparing adaptive radiations across space,time, and taxa". Journal of Heredity . 111 (1): 1–20. doi:10.1093/jhered/esz064. PMC   7931853 . PMID   31958131.
  5. Anonymous (1905). J Hered (os-1 (1): 15-16).{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)[ verification needed ]
  6. "Announcement from the American Genetics Association". BioScience. 15 (7): 494. July 1965. JSTOR   1293485 via JSTOR.
  7. WRIGHT, SEWALL (September 1, 1965). "Dr. Wilhelmine Key". Journal of Heredity. 56 (5): 195–196. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a107413. ISSN   1465-7333. PMID   5323812.
  8. "AGA Key Distinguished Lecturers". www.theaga.org. Retrieved 2022-09-20.