The whole group had its 1st quarter review meeting on January 9, 2017, at University of Arkansas. Prof. Yanbin Li, Prof. Michael Kidd, Prof. Dustan Clark, Prof. Chase Rainwater and Dr. Ronghui Wang met at Center of Excellence of Poultry Science. Prof. Brain Fugate, Prof. John Kent and investigators from China (Prof. Ming Liao, Prof. Jianmin Zhang, Mrs. Xiaoyun Qu, Prof. Jianhan Lin, Prof. Yingchun Fu, Prof. Wen Wang, Dr. Hui Zeng and Dr. Zhongbao Luo) joined the meeting online. Prof. Yanbin Li chaired the meeting. During the meeting, investigators in each subgroup gave a brief report of research activities in the first quarter and a quarterly report was prepared by each subgroup. Investigators also had a brief discussion on the tasks for the second quarter and the planning of the whole group meeting at South China Agricultural University in early June, 2017.