A delegation from the 2Blades Foundation visits the BecA-ILRI Hub

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Details: Written on Friday, 26 January 2018 13:57

From 17 January 2018, the Biosciences eastern and central Africa-International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI) Hub has been hosting a delegation from the 2Blades Foundation. The main objectives of the visit by Dr Roger Freedman, Dr Diana Horvath, Dr T. Lynne Reuber and Dr Peter van Esse is to identify common areas for synergies including resource mobilization and capacity building. During this time, they held series of meetings with the BecA-ILRI Hub staff as well as other partners.

Dr. Nasser Yao (Left) explaining to the delegation the role of the molecular breeding platform at BecA and how the IGSS and KASP genotyping platforms are linked.

The 2Blades Foundation focuses on the advancement in the development of disease resistant varieties for smallholder agriculture. They achieve their goal by working with national and international partners. They also focus on training scientists in business and management skills with the aim of giving them knowledge and ability to transition science to applications which is of great essence in the global developmental agenda for agriculture.

Dr. Peter van Esse who is currently the Principal Investigator of the 2Blades group in the Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL), UK and a member of this delegation, will a seminar this morning on “Mining disease resistance traits from crop relatives to make a rust-resistant soybean” on ILRI Campus in Nairobi Kenya. The Seminar was attended by staff, visiting scientists and staff at ILRI and other CGIAR Centers.

The BecA-ILRI Hub's Integrated Genotyping Service and Support (IGSS) platform exists to help the African national crop and livestock breeders to harness the power of genomic data to increase the efficiency of their breeding programs.