Targets for nutrigenomics in production animals: a numbers game

Nutrigenomics for production animals is likely to deliver fundamental and novel information about the responses of animals of specific genotypes to dietary nutrients. Although the demand for individualised nutrition is unlikely to match that in the field of human health, diets specific for elite classes of animals and optimised for critical developmental windows are likely outcomes of current research. As was the case for structural and functional genomics, nutrigenomics for production animals will capitalise on large global investments in human and model-animal nutrigenomics by the private and public sectors. The Australian animal science community cannot afford to rely on spillover of information from these larger studies because intellectual property is rapidly secured and knowledge is accumulating at an accelerating pace.