AnimalFarm

The domestic animal varieties developed in Europe within the last two millennia have had an extraordinary influence by becoming the primary breeds on which the global human population relies upon for food, clothing, traction, leisure and companionship. The AnimalFarm ITN will establish the historical and biological factors that catalysed the rise of this multi-billion euro industry in order to assess the long-term viability of current agricultural practices. We will do so by leveraging major advances in the fields of archaeology, DNA sequencing, proteomics and machine learning to generate high resolution data from ancient biomolecules, historical texts and archeological bones. These techniques will allow us to empirically characterise the temporal dynamics of shifts in genetic, trait and microbiome variability thereby, allowing us to understand the impact of 2,000 years of human selection. AnimalFarm will aim to exploit the combined potential of these novel scientific tools and will build on an established network of excellent researchers, five of whom have been awarded individual ERC grants. This ITN will also aim to foster novel synergies by unifying a comprehensive team of collaborators across the fields of biotechnology, humanities and biosciences in order to train a community of young scholars across highly-specialized disciplines. In addition, AnimalFarm will also aim to translate research activities into applied solutions to the modern industry by developing innovative tools that will dramatically improve product traceability.