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Objectives

The objective of the project is to integrate and strengthen biological resource centres (CRB) conserving reproductive and genetic material for species of domestic animals raised in France: mammals, birds, fish, and shellfish. The CRB-Anim network joins public research organisations (INRA, CNRS), higher education establishments (University of Tours, University of Rennes I, AgroParisTech, National Veterinary Schools), a scientific foundation (FRB), and two private platforms, GIE LABOGENA and the company ANTAGENE, which holds the genetic collections for breeders. This national system has 6 nodes located near Paris, Rennes, Tours and Lyon that conserve about 530,000 biological samples (sperm, embryos, cells, tissues, DNA, RNA).

CRB-Anim addresses two priorities of the national strategy of research and innovation:

• health, feeding, welfare,
• environmental urgency to preserve biodiversity.

This project addresses two major issues for science and society: the loss of biodiversity, in particular of domesticated species subject to intensive selection, and the rise of genetics, which opens a new era of understanding relations between phenotype and genotype and promotes the phenotypic richness resulting from animal domestication. This research needs to be able to access well-described biological samples and to have available tools for cryopreservation of biological resources.