The collaborative cross (CC) mouse resource population is being developed by community efforts at three locations: Tel-Aviv University in Israel, University of North Carolina in USA, and the University of Perth in Australia. At the time of writing this abstract, there are about 250-300 lines under development between the three sites, with over 100 lines being advanced inbreeding generations (>90% inbred). This mouse population is a powerful resource for genetic dissection of the complexity of host susceptibility to infectious and chronic diseases, and performing systems genetics analysis. Recently, in collaborations with international partners, two research centers in low and middle-income countries were developed, with the CC mice initially used as the reference population to conduct research and subsequently translate the work to target species (human and livestock). The first center, named African Center for Systems Genetics (ACSGEN), based at the University of Nairobi in Kenya, and the second center, named Najah University Center for Systems Genetics (NUCSGEN), based at An-Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine. These two centers will be conducting research by national teams on diseases affecting their countries and improving capacity building, as well as developing collaborations with international partners. Results on phenotypic response of the advanced generation of CC lines with variety of infectious and chronic diseases, and fine genomic regions mapped QTL associated with these traits will be presented. At this stage, it is possible to identify candidate genes underlying these QTL, directly confirm by knockout approach, and subsequently proceed to translation for target species.