Paula Reich

Paula Reich obtained her Bachelor's degree in Organic Agricultural Sciences at the University of Kassel, with her Bachelor's thesis focusing on the analysis of the genealogical structures of an Icelandic sheep population in relation to production traits. She then completed her Master's degree in Equine Science at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen with a Master's thesis on molecular genetic analyses on the tobiano spotting pattern and the roan coat colour in Icelandic horses. Throughout her studies, she focused particularly on the breeding and genetics of livestock, a field of research that she continued to pursue during her doctoral studies. She wrote her dissertation entitled “Application of imputed sequence-level genotypes to genomic analyses in German Warmblood horses” in the Functional Breeding group at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen, where she has been working as a postdoc since successfully completing her doctorate at the beginning of 2025. Her current research focuses on diverse genomic analyses, particularly in the equine species, such as the investigation of the genomic background of quantitative traits and genotype imputation.

Research focus:
- Genomic analyses in horses

Expertise:
- Genomic methods to analyse quantitative traits
- Genotype imputation

Research projects:
- Genomics in horses
- From Quantitative Trait Correlation to Causation in dairy cattle – using transcriptome and metabolome data (QTCCm)

Selected Publications:
- Chessari G, Reich P, Criscione A, Falker-Gieske C, Mastrangelo S, Tumino S, Bordonaro S, Marletta D, Tetens J (2025): Comparison between SNP array and imputed data to estimate population structure and ROH hotspots in horse breeds. BMC Genomics, 26:1086. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-025-12256-8
- Reich P, Möller S, Stock KF, Nolte W, v. Depka Prondzinski M, Reents R, Kalm E, Kühn C, Thaller G, Falker-Gieske C, Tetens J (2024): Genomic analyses on withers height and linear conformation traits in German Warmblood horses using imputed sequence-level genotypes. Genetics Selection Evolution, 56:45. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-022-00740-8
- Reich P, Falker‑Gieske C, Pook T, Tetens J (2022): Development and validation of a horse reference panel for genotype imputation. Genetics Selection Evolution, 54:49. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12711-024-00914-6

Teaching:
- M.Pferd.0009: Alternative uses of the horse
- M.Pferd.0012: Horse breeding and genetics
- P.AG.0089: Advanced methods in molecular life sciences