Professor Ben Hayes

Centre Director, Animal Science

Centre for Animal Science
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation
b.hayes@uq.edu.au
+61 7 334 62173

Overview

Professor Hayes has extensive research experience in genetic improvement of livestock, crop, pasture and aquaculture species, with a focus on integration of genomic information into breeding programs, including leading many large scale projects which have successfully implemented genomic technologies in livestock and cropping industries. Author of more than 300 journal papers, including in Nature Genetics, Nature Reviews Genetics, and Science, contributing to statistical methodology for genomic, microbiome and metagenomic profile predictions, quantitative genetics including knowledge of genetic mechanisms underlying complex traits, and development of bioinformatics pipelines for sequence analysis. Thomson Reuters highly cited researcher in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Research Impacts

Genomic prediction, of which Ben Hayes was a co-inventor, and first described in the seminal publication [Meuwissen THE, Hayes BJ, Goddard ME (2001) Prediction of total genetic value using genome-wide dense marker maps. Genetics 157, 1819-1829] is now being used very widely in livestock and crops to predict future trait outcomes. The technology is also being used increasingly in human disease research.

In dairy cattle, the technology has been actively used by the industry for the past five years, and increases in genetic gain for key economic traits can be demonstrated. Nearly every dairy bull worldwide chosen for widespread use in the industry is now selected on the basis of genomic predictions. Dr Hayes has been an invited speaker at numerous high profile conferences, including the Biology of Genomes conference at Cold Spring Harbor May 2015, and also has a number of youtube videos explaining complex trait prediction for a general audience, one of which has been viewed more than 5000 times (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovnCsda-zQ).

Ben Hayes led the program on animal improvement of the Dairy Futures CRC, which concluded June 2016. The animal improvement program in the Dairy Futures CRC is a successful research and utilisation program which has a very high level of industry input and collaboration. The value of the program was recognised recently when it was awarded a Cooperative Research Centres Association (CRCA) Award for Excellence in Innovation. The Dairy Futures CRC under the leadership of Dr. Hayes successfully developed and implemented a genomic breeding value for feed efficiency, which has been widely adopted by the industry.

Dr. Hayes established the 1000 bull genomes project, a consortium of over 30 institutes across the globe, which has assembled whole genome sequences of 1682 cattle of 55 breeds. The consortium has published a widely cited paper in Nature Genetics (Daetwyler et al. 2014), and has already led to more than 50 companion papers.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Central Queensland University

Publications

  • Lamb, H. J., Nguyen, L. T., Copley, J. P., Engle, B. N., Hayes, B. J. and Ross, E. M. (2023). Imputation strategies for genomic prediction using nanopore sequencing. BMC Biology, 21 (1) 286, 286. doi: 10.1186/s12915-023-01782-0

  • Yadav, Seema, Ross, Elizabeth M., Wei, Xianming, Liu, Shouye, Nguyen, Loan To, Powell, Owen, Hickey, Lee T., Deomano, Emily, Atkin, Felicity, Voss‐Fels, Kai P. and Hayes, Ben J. (2023). Use of continuous genotypes for genomic prediction in sugarcane. The Plant Genome e20417, e20417. doi: 10.1002/tpg2.20417

  • Yadav, Seema, Ross, Elizabeth M., Wei, Xianming, Powell, Owen, Hivert, Valentin, Hickey, Lee T., Atkin, Felicity, Deomano, Emily, Aitken, Karen S., Voss-Fels, Kai P. and Hayes, Ben J. (2023). Optimising clonal performance in sugarcane: leveraging non-additive effects via mate-allocation strategies. Frontiers in Plant Science, 14 1260517, 1260517. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1260517

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Grants

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Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy

  • Doctor Philosophy

  • (2023) Doctor Philosophy

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Publications

Book Chapter

  • Chen, Chunpeng James, Rutkoski, Jessica, Schnable, James C., Murray, Seth C., Wang, Lizhi, Jin, Xiuliang, Stich, Benjamin, Crossa, Jose, Hayes, Ben J. and Zhang, Zhiwu (2023). Role of the genomics-phenomics-agronomy paradigm in plant breeding. Plant breeding reviews. (pp. 627-673) edited by Irwin Goldman. Hoboken, NJ United States: John Wiley and Sons. doi: 10.1002/9781119874157.ch10

  • Voss-Fels, Kai P., Herzog, Eva, Dreisigacker, Susanne, Sukumaran, Sivakumar, Watson, Amy, Frisch, Matthias, Hayes, Ben and Hickey, Lee T. (2019). “SpeedGS” to accelerate genetic gain in spring wheat. Applications of genetic and genomic research in cereals. (pp. 303-327) edited by Thomas Miedaner and Viktor Korzun. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/b978-0-08-102163-7.00014-4

  • Hayes, Ben (2013). Overview of statistical methods for genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Genome-wide association studies and genomic prediction. (pp. 149-169) New York, NY, United States: Humana Press. doi: 10.1007/978-1-62703-447-0_6

  • Goddard, M. E. and Hayes, B. J. (2012). Genome-wide association studies and linkage disequilibrium in cattle. Bovine genomics. (pp. 192-210) edited by James E. Womack. Oxford, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons. doi: 10.1002/9781118301739.ch13

  • Hayes, B. J., Cocks, B. and Goddard, M. E. (2011). Genetics: cattle genomics. Encyclopedia of dairy sciences. (pp. 663-668) edited by John W. Fuquay. Kidlington, Oxford, United Kingdom: Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-374407-4.00211-9

  • Hayes, Ben and Andersen, Oivind (2005). Modern biotechnology and aquaculture. Selection and Breeding Programs in Aquaculture. (pp. 301-317) Springer Netherlands. doi: 10.1007/1-4020-3342-7_19

  • Andersen, Oivind and Hayes, Ben (2005). Population genetics. Selection and Breeding Programs in Aquaculture. (pp. 23-33) Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer Netherlands. doi: 10.1007/1-4020-3342-7_3

  • Hayes B.J., Kinghorn B.P. and Ruvinsky A. (2004). Genome scanning for quantitative trait loci. Mammalian Genomics. (pp. 507-539) CABI Publishing.

Journal Article

Conference Publication

Other Outputs

Grants (Administered at UQ)

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Master Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

Completed Supervision