Dr. Majid Mottaghitalab, Head of the Animal Biotechnology Institute, welcomed the delegation and had the opportunity to demonstrate the recent projects in the pipeline. Moreover, several performance reports, recommendations, criticisms and ideas were presented by the researchers.

Dr. Khoshkholghsima emphasized on the importance of directing the research projects lead to product, so that, play a role in Iran’s economic development.

She also brought the attention to the need and prominence of close collaboration among ABRII, regional institutes and other research centers. Dr. Khoshkholghsima declared that the Interdisciplinarity of the research projects specifically in the cell and tissue culture field, is of the predominant competencies of ABRII through national scales.

It is worth noting that the northern region of Iran is biodiverse and produces livestock (sheep, goat, cattle, buffalo and Caspian horse), crops (rice, olive and citrus), industrial insects (silkworm and honey bee) and various species of poultry and fish. Animal Biotechnology Research Institute (Rasht) was established in 2006 to focus on farm animal biotechnology.  It is housed in an area of 7,000 m2, which includes 3,600 m2 of laboratory and office space and 370 m2 of greenhouse. This center mostly focuses on breeding and genomic selection of livestock, poultry, aquatic animals and industrial insects using new “omics” and high-throughput genome sequencing technologies, optimizing and economizing the production, reproduction and breeding of livestock, poultry, fish and industrial insects using biotechnological approaches, producing feed supplements for livestock, poultry and fish, using biotechnological approaches, genetic engineering of livestock, poultry and aquatic animals and improving ornamental species grown in the region using omics and cell and tissue cultures technologies