Developed by the National Center of Technology Innovation for Dairy (NCTID), these new genetic chips offer a transformative advantage in efficiency and cost. According to information from the NCTID, the chips enable testing that is more than four times faster and costs only one-fifth that of traditional whole-genome sequencing. Utilizing microarray technology, these high-throughput bioinformatics tools precisely analyze genes linked to desirable traits, boasting high sensitivity and specificity.

The NCTID’s research fellow, Li Xihe, highlighted the collaborative effort behind this achievement. To address key challenges in China’s dairy sector, the center partnered with universities, research institutes, and leading dairy companies. This collaboration led to the establishment of a vast dairy breeding big data platform, leveraging data from 96 large-scale farms and over 600,000 dairy cattle nationwide, applying machine learning to analyze extensive gene-trait data.

This comprehensive research enabled the successful identification of genetic fingerprints for both top international dairy breeds and indigenous Chinese cattle lines. Based on these profound insights, the NCTID team developed the two new chips. Their primary objective is to ensure that selected cows consistently produce high-protein, high-fat milk, while also maintaining low somatic cell and bacterial counts, directly impacting dairy product quality and farm efficiency.