Theo Meuwissen

Theodorus (Theo) HE Meuwissen (born July 24, 1963 in Roermond , Prov. Limburg, Holland) is a Dutch agricultural scientist and professor of bioinformatics at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and Environment in Ås .

Live and act

Theodorus (Theo) Hendrikus Elisabeth Meuwissen was born in the Dutch province of Limburg and grew up on a farm. He studied agricultural sciences at the University of Wageningen , graduated in 1987 with a Master of Science (M. Sc.) In animal production and obtained his Ph.D. He then worked as a scientist at the Institute for Animal Production in Schoonoord near Utrecht and then at the Institute for Animal Science and Health in Lelystad near Amsterdam, from 2000 as head of the “Genetics and Conservation” department.

During his time in Lelystad, he undertook several research stays at the University of Melbourne (Australia) and published important papers on the introduction of genomic methods in animal breeding together with Professor Michael Goddard there . In 2002 Meuwissen moved to the Norwegian University for Life Sciences and Environment in As b. Oslo, Norway, became professor of bioinformatics at the Institute of Animal and Aquaculture Sciences in the Faculty of Biosciences and from 2009 to 2014 headed the “Breeding and Quantitative Genetics” working group.

Appreciation

As early as 1997/98, Theo Meuwissen proposed a method for controlling the frequency of use of top animals when using insemination in order to limit the increase in inbreeding to a desired level and still achieve high breeding progress. This “Optimum Contribution Selection” was later adopted by many breeding organizations.

When the selection methods based on individual genes applied in the mid-1990s were hardly successful in animal breeding, Theo Meuwissen, Ben Hayes and Mike Goddard proposed in 2001 to estimate an effect on the trait for each marker. This means that very reliable breeding values can be determined for young animals without progeny if a large learning sample is available (as a benchmark). This new method is called genomic selection. To this end, Meuwissen published three statistical methods that are still valid today and have only been slightly improved. Since chip technology was further developed, more animals could be typed cheaply from around 2006 onwards, thus helping genomic selection achieve a breakthrough in many breeding organizations for important agricultural livestock species. The process is now also used in plant breeding and, in a modified form, in human genetics .

Due to his achievements, Theo Meuwissen temporarily attracted many doctoral students and postdocs from different countries to the working group in As, so that a new scientific center for quantitative genetics was created here.

Volunteering

Member of the editorial board of the "Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics"
2009–2015 Vice-President of the Genetics Commission of the European Association for Animal Production (EVT or EAAP)

honors and awards

1999 Van Bekkum Award of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) for "Pioneering research in the field of animal breeding, especially in dairy cattle"
2015 Leroy Prize of the European Association for Animal Production ( EAAP )
2016 John J. Carty Prize from the US National Science Academy with Mike Goddard - as the first agricultural scientist "for the development of genomic selection"
2018 Hermann von Nathusius Medal of the German Society for Breeding Science (DGfZ)

Publications (selection)

Theo Meuwissen has published an impressive number of scientific publications in high-ranking journals in his career to date. The most important is the first about genomic selection from 2001 - as of January 2019 it was cited 2481 times worldwide (Web of Science); There were 709 very important mentions across all contributions.

Meuwissen, THE: "Optimization of dairy cattle breeding plans with increased female reproductive rates". Wageningen, (1990). PhD thesis Wageningen.
Meuwissen, Theo HE: Maximizing the response of selection with a predefined rate of inbreeding. (1997) Journ. of Animal Science 74, 934-940.
Meuwissen, THE; Hayes, BJ; Goddard, ME (2001). Prediction of total genetic value using genome-wide dense marker maps. Genetics 157, 1819-1829.
Meuwisssen, THE; Goddard, ME: Prediction of identity by descent probabilities from marker-hapolotypes. (2001) Genetics Selection Evolution 33: 605-634.
Meuwissen, Theo; Goddard, Mike: Accurate Prediction of Genetic Values for Complex Traits by Whole-Genome Resequencing (2010). Genetics 185, 623-630.
Meuwissen, Theo HE; Astrid Karlsen; Sigbiern Lien; Ingrid Olsaker; ME Goddard: Fine mapping of a quantitative trait locus for twinning rate using combined linkage and linkage disequilibrium mapping. (2002) Genetics 161, 373-379.
Calus, Mario PI; Theo HE Meuwissen; Adrianus PW de Roos; Roel F. Veerkamp: Accuracy of genomic selection using different methods to define haplotypes. (2008) Genetics 178: 553-561.
Meuwissen, Theo HE; ME Goddard: Fine mapping of quantitative trait loci using linkage disequilibria with closely linked marker loci. (2000) Genetics 155: 421-430.
Meuwissen, Theo HE: Accuray of breeding values of "unrelated" individuals predicted by dense SNP genotyping. (2009), Genetics, Selection, Evolution 41, 35.
Meuwissen, Theo HE: Mapping multiple QTL using linkage disequilibrium and linkage analysis information and multitrait data. (2003) Genetics, Selection, Evolution 36, 261-279.
Meuwisssen, Theo: Lecture at the 66th Annual Meeting of EAAP 2015 in Warsaw:

literature

DGfZ : Prof. Dr. Theo Meuwissen honored with the Hermann von Nathusius Medal. In: Mittlg. from October 1, 2018.
Bennewitz, Jörn; Otto Marquardt : Awarding of the Hermann von Nathusius Medal to Prof. Dr. Theo Meuwissen. In: Züchtungskunde 91, H. 1, 1–2

Web links

Individual evidence

personal data
SURNAME	Meuwissen, Theo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Meuwissen, Theodorus Hendrikus Elisabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dutch agricultural scientist and university lecturer for bioinformatics in Norway
DATE OF BIRTH	July 24, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH	Roermond (Holland)

[1] Honors in the DGfZ

[2] Lecture at the 66th Annual Meeting of the EAAP 2015 in Warschaʊ

[3] Theo Meuwissen honored by the DGfZ

[4] Awarding of the Hermann von Nathusius Medal to Theo Meuwissen