Imagine a seed vault, but for animals — frozen genetic material from cattle, chickens, sheep, and other livestock stored in banks across Europe. The problem is, most of that stored material sits unused because nobody knows exactly what's in it or how to use it effectively. IMAGE built the DNA tools and information systems to catalogue what's actually stored, predict how well frozen samples will perform, and make it practical for breeders to tap into that genetic diversity when they need traits like heat tolerance or disease resistance.
Livestock genetic diversity is declining as commercial breeding focuses on a narrow set of high-performance lines. Meanwhile, gene banks across Europe hold frozen genetic material that could help breeders respond to climate change, disease outbreaks, and shifting consumer demands — but this material is poorly catalogued, inconsistently stored, and difficult to use in practice.
IMAGE produced 14 deliverables including: a central information system connecting germplasm and genomic collections across countries; harmonised procedures for gene bank operations; conservation and reproductive biotechnologies; DNA-based tools for assessing genetic diversity; and a demonstrated case study integrating gene bank material into a chicken breeding line for egg shell color improvement.
If you are a livestock breeding company struggling with shrinking genetic diversity in your commercial lines — this project developed DNA-based methods to identify useful traits stored in national gene banks and demonstrated how to integrate gene bank material back into active breeding lines, as shown in their chicken breeding case study for egg shell color improvement.
If you are a gene bank operator dealing with inconsistent storage protocols across facilities and no way to predict whether frozen samples will actually work — this project developed harmonised procedures for gene bank operations, conservation biotechnologies, and methods to predict cryobank samples' reproductive performance before costly thawing and use.
If you are a specialty food company building your brand around local or heritage breed products — this project created tools to define and track breed-based product brands and implemented access and benefit sharing regulations, giving you a verified genetic chain from farm to label across 16 countries.
The project was publicly funded with EUR 7,000,000 from the EU under Horizon 2020. The central information system connecting germplasm and genomic collections was developed as a public resource. Specific licensing terms for biotechnologies developed would need to be discussed with the coordinator INRAE.
The project demonstrated integration of gene bank material into an active chicken breeding line for egg shell color, proving the concept works in a real production context. Scaling to larger livestock operations would require adaptation, but the DNA-based tools and bioinformatics pipelines were designed for practical use by breeders.
IP is held by the 28-partner consortium led by INRAE (France). With 12 research institutes and 10 universities involved, licensing arrangements would likely go through INRAE as coordinator. Contact them directly for technology transfer discussions.
Yes — IMAGE specifically developed tools to implement access and benefit sharing regulations, which is directly relevant to the Nagoya Protocol obligations in Europe. This is one of the few projects that built compliance tools alongside the science.
The project ran from 2016 to 2020 and produced 14 deliverables including operational procedures and a central information system. Based on available project data, the harmonised gene bank procedures could be adopted relatively quickly, while integrating DNA-based breeding tools would require a longer implementation timeline depending on your existing infrastructure.
IMAGE built a central information system to connect available data on germplasm and genomic collections. Based on available project data, this system was designed to link existing databases rather than replace them, suggesting integration with current breeding management tools was a design priority.
The IMAGE consortium of 28 partners across 16 countries is heavily research-oriented: 12 research institutes and 10 universities make up 79% of the partnership, with only 3 industry players and 2 SMEs (11% industry ratio). This is typical for a Research and Innovation Action in agricultural genetics. The geographic spread — spanning from Argentina and Colombia to Morocco and Egypt alongside core European countries — reflects the global nature of genetic resource management. For a business looking to adopt these tools, INRAE (France) as coordinator is a strong institutional partner with deep expertise, but commercialisation would likely require additional industry engagement beyond what the project delivered.
INRAE (Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement) in France — one of Europe's leading agricultural research organisations
Want to connect with IMAGE researchers for gene bank integration or breed traceability? SciTransfer can arrange introductions and provide a tailored technology brief for your specific livestock operation.
