NordGen Farm Animals has assisted FAO with the new FAO Guidelines “Innovations in cryoconservation of animal genetic resources”. During the year, a series of ten webinars based on the chapters in the draft FAO Guidelines will be arranged by FAO in collaboration with NordGen Farm Animals.

On this website, the recorded webinars will be available. The first webinar (held on May 18^th) was titled “Building a gene bank strategy” and was presented by the lead authors, Michele Tixier-Boichard, Sipke Hiemstra and Harvey Blackburn.

The recording of webinar 1 is available here.

The Q&A from webinar 1 is available here. 

The presentation files from webinar 1 can be found below:

Cryconservation Webinar Presentations1

The second webinar (held on May 24^th) was presented by Dr Phil Purdy and was titled “Choice of biological material to be preserved”. This webinar addressed section 3 in the FAO guidelines.

The recording of webinar 2 is available here.

The Q&A from webinar 2 is available here.

The presentation files from webinar 2 can be found below:

Cryconservation Webinar Presentations2

The third webinar (held on June 1^th) was presented by Dominic Moran, Rafael De Oliveria Silva och Carl Lessard and was titled “Economics of gene banking”. This webinar addressed section 4 in the FAO guidelines.

The recording of webinar 3 is available here.

The Q&A from webinar 3 is available here. 

The presentation files from webinar 3 can be found below:

Cryoconservation Webinar Presentations 3

The fourth webinar (held on June 15^th) was presented by Alessandra Stella and Yang Hongjie. The webinar was titled “Databases and documentation” and addressed section 8 in the FAO guidelines.

The recording of webinar 4 is available here.

The Q&A from webinar 4 is available here. 

The presentation files from webinar 4 can be found below:

Cryoconservation Webinar Presentations 4

The fifth webinar (held on June 28th) addressed section 5 in the guidelines (titled “Developing and using gene bank collections”) and section 2 (“Implementation and organization in FAO”).

The recording of webinar 5 part 1 (sec. 5) is available here.

The recording of webinar 5 part 2 (sec. 2) is available here.

The Q&A from webinar 5 is available here. 

The presentation files from webinar 5 part 2(sec 2) can be found here:

Cryoconservation Webinar Presentations Webinar 5 part 2(sec 2)

The following topics will be covered in the ten webinars on cryoconservation:

1. Building a gene bank strategy
2. Implementation and organization
3. Choice of biological material to be preserved
4. Economics of gene banking
5. Developing and using gene bank collections
6. Collection and cryo-preservation of germ plasm and tissues
7. Sanitary issues and recommendations
8. Databases and documentation
9. Legal issues: acquisition, storage and transfer of gene bank material
10. Capacity building and training

See Calendar for current webinars with links. For more information, please contact NordGen Farm Animal’s Section Leader, Mervi Honkatukia at mervi.honkatukia@nordgen.org.