Swine Genome Sequencing Consortium continues to try to reach its goal.
Efforts are progressing to advance the sequencing of the pig genome. The
most recent meeting for the pig sequencing project was held at Sanger
Institute (Cambridge, UK), June 28th 2004. This meeting was mainly
devoted to establishing a sound base for the sequencing effort -
integration of the physical maps, fingerprints and BES and to the
definition of a BAC tilling path. The Consortium consider that the pig
is very well placed for an extremely efficient sequencing effort using
the "hybrid" approach and emphasis can be placed on ensuring valuable
intermediate outputs throughout the project. This provided the basis for
an encouraging discussion of fund raising. The next meeting will be held
during ISAG meeting (Tokyo, Japan) September 2004. It is planned that
the ISAG meeting will focus on the sequencing strategy. We need to
continue to work towards finalizing a funding plan before October 1,
2004. Interested parties are encouraged to participate in the future.
If you can help in raising these funds please contact Larry Schook at
UIUC or Max Rothschild, at ISU (kindly provided by Graham Plastow).
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New array materials likely to become available in the near future. There
have been a number of requests for arrays from NRSP8 members and others
both inside and outside the United States. To meet this demand we are
considering buying a set of oligos and selling slides on $60-$65 cost per
slide with minimum orders of 25 required and maximum orders of 150
slides. This would be available to both NRSP8 members and others both
inside and outside the US. Slide orders would be on a first come first
serve basis. If you are interested please immediately contact Max
Rothschild at mfrothsc@iastate.edu .
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International sequencing consortium launches online resource. The
International Sequencing Consortium (ISC) has launched a free, online
resource where scientists and the public can get the latest information
on the status of sequencing projects for animal, plant and other
eukaryotic genomes. The new resource can be accessed through ISC's home
page, http://www.intlgenome.org . The database enables users to quickly
sort sequencing project information by organism, by sequencing group or
by funding agency. Information about each sequencing project includes
timetables for completion, along with brief descriptions of sequencing
strategies being employed. In many cases, the database also features
links to the individual sequencing projects' Web sites and the sites of
their funding agencies, such as NHGRI. Also available are links to other
publicly run databases where the actual DNA sequence data is deposited.
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The new CSREES web site is up and running. For this page to be effective
it is important that it be kept "current". Please send any events or
topic information to Dr. Muquarrab Qureshi USDA-CSREES
MQureshi@CSREES.USDA.GOV. You may want to post notices such as meetings
or conferences, as long as they are related to this webpage. You can
access the web and the page as follows: www.csrees.usda.gov and then
going to the section on Animals and Animal Products and looking for the
programs on Animal Breeding and Genetics and Genomics.
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A new funding opportunity within the USDA-CSREES National Research
Initiative (NRI) grants program now exists. The program is 66.0
Enhancing the Prosperity of Small Farms and Rural Agricultural
Communities (www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/fundview.cfm?fonum=1200). Proposals
must be received by October 5, 2004. Integrated research, education, and
extension project awards for this program are expected to have a total
budget (including indirect costs) of no more than $500,000 for 2-4 years
of support. Questions regarding the suitability of proposals should be
directed to Dr. Siva Sureshwaran (ssureshwaran@csrees.usda.gov) or Dr.
Diana Jerkins (djerkins@csrees.usda.gov).
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A bioinformatics update from the Bioinformatics Coordinator. For the
past six months, efforts have been involved in two main projects related
to pigs 1) design and creation of a QTL database for pigs, and 2)
development of a bioinformatic tool for primer design. The QTL database
is being developed and implemented in collaboration with NCBI. A
preliminary implementation of the database can be found at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/LocusLink/list.cgi . Simply query 'QTL and
Sus Scrofa' for entire list of QTLs. The primer design tool has been
designed and implemented with a perl CGI driven program. This tool is
currently in beta testing and should be released for public use shortly.
In addition, work to develop a database that researchers can obtain all
livestock DNA sequences without having to query NCBI is underway. This
tool is in the development stage and should be available to the community
shortly. Please contact jreecy@iastate.edu with any suggested projects or bioinformatic needs.
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Upcoming meetings (see:
http://www.genome.iastate.edu/community/meetings.html )
- The 16th European Colloquium on Animal Cytogenetics and Gene Mapping will
be held at the Jouy-en-Josas research center of the INRA July 6 - 8.
Please see: http://www.inra.fr/16ecacgm
- American Society of Animal Science- American dairy Science -Poultry
Science Association joint Meeting, July 25-29, 2004, St. Louis, MO. For
details please see http://www.fass.org/2004/ .
- ISAG 2004, 29th International Conference on Animal Genetics, Sept. 11-16,
2004, Surugadai Campus, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. For more
information see http://www2.kobe-u.ac.jp/~isag2004/
- Genome Informatics, sponsored by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the
Wellcome Trust, September 22-26 in Hinxton Hall, Hinxton, UK. For
information please contact meetings@cshl.edu .
- GSAC XVI, sponsored by The Institute for Genome Research, Sept. 27-30,
2004, Washington, DC. See www.tigr.org/conf/gsac for more information.
- GO Users Meeting will be held at Northwestern University, Chicago,
October 14, 2004. For more details contact r-chisholm@northwestern.edu .
- Computational Genomics sponsored by TIGR will be in Reston, VA, October
21-24. For details contact registration@tigr.org .
- Ninth DISCOVER Conference on Food Animal Agriculture. "Protecting and
Managing Animal Genetic Resources for Future Generations: The Next
Steps", Nov. 2-5, 2004, Cheyenne, Wyoming. Please see
www.adsa.org/discover/ for further information.
- Bioinformatics and its Applications in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on
December 16-19, 2004. For details please contact hem@nsu.nova.edu
- Plant, Animal and Microbial Genome XIII, joint with the NAGRP annual
meetings, Jan. 15-19, 2005, Town & Country Convention Center, San Diego,
CA. Please see www.intl-pag.org/ for information.
Additional items can be found at:
http://www.agbiotechnet.com/calendar/index.asp .
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Items for Pig Genome Update 68 can be sent to me by no later than August
15 please.
Max Rothschild
U.S. Pig Genome Coordinator
2255 Kildee Hall, Department of Animal Science
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011
Phone: 515-294-6202, Fax: 515-294-2401
mfrothsc@iastate.edu
cc: Muquarrab Qureshi, CSREES and Caird Rexroad II, ARS
© US Pig Genome Coordination Program