Dr. Reiner Emmerling

Single-Step – Next Generation of Genomic Selection for Brown Swiss in Germany and Austria

Reiner Emmerling is a senior geneticist at the Institute of animal breeding of the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL) in Grub. He is leader of the working group on ‘genetic evaluation in production traits and genomic statistics’. He earned a PhD in quantitative genetics at Technische Universität München under supervision of Prof. Leo Dempfle. He spent 15 months at the finish MTT Agrifood Research Renter in Jokioinen in 2000 and 2001 where he developed the random regression test day model with heterogeneous variances for the joint alpine genetic evaluation of Germany and Austria.

 

Ever since, his focus has been on the improvement of genetic evaluation systems. In the last decade, the implementation of genomic selection, the design of national bull and cow calibration sets and the implementation of single step genomic evaluation in collaboration with the joint research team in Germany and Austria have been milestones of his work. Parts of the Brown Swiss routine evaluation and some educational work is also covered by his group in Grub.