The projects were awarded through United States Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) National Research Initiative Animal Genome Program, which seeks to develop sound, practical, science-based knowledge that can be shared with other researchers, farmers and consumers of U.S. animal products.

These awards also support the training of the next generation of scientists by providing support for 25 post-doctoral fellows and 15 graduate students.

"Investing in good basic and applied research will help pinpoint genetic differences that result in superior animal products of the best quality for the consumer," says USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Grants were awarded to the following:

Auburn University, $725,000
University of California, Davis, $560,000
University of Southern California, $711,884
University of Delaware, $125,000
University of Georgia, $449,575
Iowa State University, $1,668,784
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, $449,421
USDA, Agricultural Research Service (ARS)/Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Md., $625,000
University of Maryland, $906,098
USDA, ARS/Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory (ADOL), Mich., $875,000
USDA, ARS/ADOL, $448,552
University of Minnesota, $997,632
University of Missouri, $125,000
Texas A&M University, $313,516
Texas A&M University, $125,000
Utah State University, $629,471
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, $585,613
Washington State University, $450,000
University of Wisconsin, Madison, $411,651