Animal Science Archives

Prof. Samuel Aggrey is a distinguished research professor in genetics and genomics at the University of Georgia (UGA), USA. He holds the Richard B. Russell Endowed Chair and is also a professor in the Department of Poultry Science at Athens, Georgia.

Prof. Aggrey is a co-editor of Poultry Genetics, Breeding and Biotechnology and the lead editor of Advances in Poultry Genetics and Genomics. He has also authored numerous book chapters and over 200 peer-reviewed publications. He has trained postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers from around the world and maintains strong collaborative partnerships across Africa, Asia, and Europe.
His notable honors include the Jaap Memorial Lectureship at the Ohio State University; the D.W. Brooks Award for Excellence in Research (UGA); the UGA Student Career Influencer Award; the Broiler Research Award from the Poultry Science Association; the Changxin Chu Fund Award (China Agricultural University Educational Foundation/World’s Poultry Science Association); the Carnegie Fellowship; the World’s Poultry Science Association Siegel Research Award; and the D.W. Brooks awards for excellence in international agriculture and for excellence in diversity (UGA).

Prof. Aggrey serves as the capacity building pillar chair and as a member of the Executive Committee of the African Animal Breeding Network. He is also a member of the High-Level Think Tank on Technological Issues in African Agriculture, and contributes to the African Union’s Working Group on Animal Seed under the African Seed and Biotechnology Partnership Platform.

His current research interests include quantitative genetics and genomics of stressors (climate change and Eimeria spp. infection), as well as modeling and precision animal agriculture.

Prof. Aggrey’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining the potential of polyamine-enhancing nutritional strategies as alternatives to pharmaceutical interventions in combating Eimeria spp. infection in poultry. It is integrating molecular biology, parasitology, and applied poultry science through multi-omics approaches to advance innovative health management strategies. The project aims to enhance host resilience, provide mechanistic insights into how polyamines improve poultry health, expand frameworks for nutritional immunomodulation, and develop biomarkers.

Dr. Susanta Behura is an assistant professor of computational biology and bioinformatics in the Division of Animal Sciences of the University of Missouri, Columbia. He has a BSc in mathematics, an MSc in biotechnology, and a PhD in life sciences. His postdoctoral training was at Purdue University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has a decade’s experience in animal health and reproduction research at the University of Missouri. His lab leverages multi-omics data using transcriptomics, epigenetics, metabolomics, proteomics, and single-cell genomics assays to perform data-intensive bioinformatics research in the areas of reproduction, development, and health.

Dr. Behura has a demonstratable track record of conducting research independently as well as collaboratively. He has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and these have been cited extensively. His current h-index is 37 and i10-index, 82. In the last five years, his lab has published several papers in Gene, Placenta, Cells, iScience, and FASEB J which have provided new insights into the role of placenta in the development of fetal brain in animals. Dr. Behura has also been actively involved in writing collaborative and independent grant proposals. At Missouri, he has developed and taught a graduate-level course, and has also mentored three graduate students and a senior research specialist.

A reviewer for many high-impact factor journals, Dr. Behura is an editorial board member of several journals such as Scientific Reports and Systems Biology in Reproductive Medicine. He has also served as a grant reviewer and panelist for agencies like the U.S. National Science Foundation, French National Research Agency, German Research Foundation, Wellcome Trust, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Israel’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Space, and Spain’s “la Caixa” Foundation.

Dr. Behura’s Fulbright-Kalam project is a combined teaching and research endeavor at Utkal University, India. His research project, called “Advancing Genomics Research and Education on Climate-resilient Animal Agriculture in India”, is studying epigenetic changes in the blood of dairy cows to understand how they cope with summer heat. The teaching component is providing students an overview of emerging applications of genomics in climate resilience research in animal agriculture.