Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Genetics and Animal Breeding » People » Larry Kuehn

Larry A Kuehn

Research Geneticist (Animals)

/ARSUserFiles/39130/Photos/Larry Kuehn - small.jpg

Larry A. Kuehn
Research Leader and Research Geneticist (Animals)

Personal Background

Dr. Kuehn's research program focuses on genetic improvement of beef cattle through genetic selection. As part of this emphasis, he works to develop new phenotyping initiatives as well as utilization of genomic markers in genetic evaluation programs. While the beef industry has been very successful in selection for genetic progress in trait complexes that are easy to measure (e.g., weight), many traits are not measured well; research programs can be developed to evaluate new trait complexes for disease resistance, fertility, feed efficiency, endproduct quality, and cow longevity. Genomic tests can now accurately produce genotypes on millions of polymorphisms (genomic variants) across the genome and utilization of this large amount of data has revolutionized genetic evaluation programs but has also produced challenges in utilizing the vast amount of data.

 As part of these challenges, Dr. Kuehn has designed large phenotypic collection efforts for rarely measured traits that are economically important to beef production using the Germplasm Evaluation (GPE) program. The Germplasm Evaluation program is a large multi-breed effort designed to provide breed differences, heterosis effects, genetic parameters such as heritability and genetic correlations, and genomically important haplotypes. He also works with a team to develop statistical and genetic applications to increase the utility of this information and to help commercial cattle producers with selection decisions. Dr. Kuehn is also responsible for annual updates to across breed EPD adjustment factors that enable producers to compare the genetic merit of bulls across breeds for growth and endproduct traits.

/ARSUserFiles/39130/Photos/Google Scholar.jpg