P I G G E N O M E U P D A T E __________________________________________________________________ A Bimonthly Newsletter of the U.S. Pig Genome Coordination Program ************** No. 78 ************** * * * * * May 1, 2006 * ************************************** =========================================================================== 1. Pig genome sequencing is on the move 2. Planning for next year's PAG is moving along well 3. New swine oligo arrays nearing reality 4. USDA CSREES FY 2006 National Research Initiative information 5. New bioinformatic tools and materials are available 6. Upcoming meetings ( 7 items ) =========================================================================== Pig genome sequencing is on the move. Sequencing has already begun and updates can be seen daily at http://www.animalgenome.org/pigs/genomesequence/ . These updates are provided as part of the Bioinformatic Coordinator's team effort. Other information about the sequencing can be seen at that page and web pages at the Sanger Institute and the University of Illinois. o o o o o o o o o o o Planning for next year's PAG is moving along well with a number of exciting speakers already lined up. Anyone with suggestions about PAG-XV speakers or other aspects of PAG should contact PAG animal reps, including Hans Cheng, Max Rothschild, Claire Gill, Mary Delany, Michel Georges and Jim Reecy. o o o o o o o o o o o New swine oligo arrays nearing reality. Work continues to get the production of the array materials ready and despite some setbacks they are nearing reality. These should be available this summer and details for obtaining them will be made available in the July 1 newsletter. o o o o o o o o o o o USDA CSREES FY 2006 National Research Initiative (competitive grant program) information can be found at http://www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/fundview.cfm?fonum=3D1112 . Total FY 2006 NRI funding was estimated at $183M, but this will likely be reduced by across the board cuts of 1% (to end up at about the same level as last year). Note that there are some changes in the FY2006 NRI. The Program 43.0, Animal Genome, has been divided into Applied Animal Genomics, Tools and Reagents, Bioinformatics, and Functional Genomics. (Functional Genomics will appear on alternate years beginning in FY 2006.) The due date for all is June 15, 2006. As mentioned in a previous issue and discussed again at PAG-XIV, CSREES officials are concerned about the low overall NRI success rate (14 of 73 proposals funded in the 2005 Animal Genome Program or 19%). Efforts (sometimes controversial) have been made to focus the NRI RFA to reduce the effort going into preparing and reviewing unsuccessful proposals. o o o o o o o o o o o New bioinformatic tools and materials are available. The first is the "Bioinformatics utility tool box" which is set up at the NAGRP Bioinformatics site. Currently there are 6 utility tools in the "box": 1. Expeditor: Design primers using gene structure and EST information from different species. 2. Prim2: Design primers on the consensus of 2 similar sequences. 3. A sequence alignment diagram drawing tool. 4. Gene ontology (GO) terms classifications counter. 5. DNA Sequence Reverse Complement Converter. 6. Query the Bovine SNP Database by blast. URL: http://www.animalgenome.org/bioinfo/resources/util/. These tools should help all researchers. The second is the Animal Genomics Software Archive which is an animal genomics software archive site for publicly shared software (http://db.genome.iastate.edu/ftp/share/). Those who wish to share their software with the community, please feel free to contact bioinfo- team@animalgenome.org for information on how to deposit your software to this archive. o o o o o o o o o o o Upcoming meetings (see: http://www.animalgenome.org/pigs/community/meetings.html) Workshop on Chicken Genomics & Development, May 7-10, 2006, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY. See http://meetings.cshl.edu/meetings/chick06.shtml The Biology of Genomes, May 10-14, 2006, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY. See http://meetings.cshl.edu/meetings/genome06.shtml 2nd International Symposium on Animal Functional Genomics, May 16-19, 2006, Henry Center, Michigan State U., East Lansing, MI. See http://www.isafg.msu.edu 17th European Colloquium on Animal Cytogenetics and Gene Mapping, June 18- 21, 2006, Lisbon, Portugal. See http://www.realvitur.pt/17_ecacgm.php The 8th World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock ProductionBelo Horizonte, MG, Brazil, August 13- 18, 2006. For information please contact Fernando E. Madalena at iprociencia@terra.com.br ISAG 2006, 30th International Conference on Animal Genetics, August 20-25, 2006, Porto Seguro - Brazil. See http://www.cbra.org.br/eventos/XXXisag.do 24th Stadler Genetics Symposium, "Genomics of Disease." October 2-4, 2006. University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. Please see http://muconf.missouri.edu/stadler/ <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> Items for Pig Genome Update 79 can be sent to me by no later than June 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 =========================================================================== U.S. PIG GENOME COORDINATION PROJECT +-----------------------------------+ | Paid for by funds from the NRSP-8 | Web: http://www.animalgenome.org/pig | USDA/CSREES sponsored Pig Genome | Mail: angenmap@animalgenome.org | Coordination Program | +-----------------------------------+--------------------------------------