Pig Genome Update No. 41
angenmap@db.genome.iastate.edu
March 1, 2000
The Plant & Animal Genome VIII (PAG-VIII) and the NRSP-8 meetings were recently held in sunny San Diego. PAG-VIII attendance grew again this year to 1,500 registrants plus 68 exhibitors. Industry booths more than doubled, and over 600 posters were exhibited in excellent, well-attended poster sessions. Abstracts can be viewed at the PAG-VIII website, http://www.intl-pag.org/pag . The main talks included a description of new applications of chip technology by Affymetrix's Robert Lipschutz, error free SNP analysis by Charli Rodi of Sequenom, Inc., tomato QTL cloning by Dani Zamir (Hebrew U.), applications of transgenic mice to genomics by Edward Rubin (LBNL/Berkeley), announcement of the identity of the pig RN allele-encoding gene by Leif Andersson (Uppsala), IBD and linkage disequilibrium studies in dairy cattle by Michel Georges (Liege) and narrowing of the search for the callipyge gene (sheep) to 25 kb by Noelle Cockett (Utah State). The meeting concluded with the banquet on Wednesday night where good times were enjoyed by all. PAGIX was followed directly by the first Ag Microbial Genome meeting with 160 registrants, about half of whom were holdovers from PAG-VIII. Congratulations to Christy Gladney of the University of Nebraska who received the Neal Jorgensen Travel Award this year from the US Pig Genome Coordinator. Our special thanks got to Steve Heller, who is to be congratulated for organizing another fine PAG meeting. Suggestions for next year's PAG speakers or other comments on the meeting can be emailed to mfrothsc@iastate.edu or sent via the PAG website noted above.
The fourth annual Swine Workshop for NRSP-8 swine species committee members and other attendees was held in conjunction with the Plant and Animal Genome VIII meeting in San Diego on January 9, 2000 and was organized by Deryl Troyer. There were five invited speaker presentations by Gary Rohrer (USDA-MARC), Dirk-Jan deKoning (Wagenengen Institute of Animal Sciences, the Netherlands), Hiroshi Yasue (National Institute of Animal Industry, Japan), Becky Emnet (Ohio State - for David Meeker), and Vernon Pursel (USDA-BARC). The Workshop was well attended by over 80 people. Individual Experiment Station reports were given throughout the day and revealed significant progress in development of the comparative map as well as new marker development and the identification of new QTL genes or chromosomal regions harboring QTL. During the business meeting, Jon Beever was elected to the secretary position (kindly provided by Deryl Troyer).
More Money Maybe!! At PAG VIII, CSREES officials were informed that USDA Secretary Glickman has authorized spending the $120 million available this year under the Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems. We were told to expect new competitive grant programs later this year in animal, microbial, and plant agricultural genomics funded at approximately $10 million for each. The Future Agriculture Initiative was authorized a couple of years ago for five years at $120 million/year. However, the U.S. House previously has blocked USDA from making any expenditures under the program (despite Senate support). In the rush to finish this year's budget, that exclusion was left out of the Ag Appropriations language, so the Secretary has decided to spend it. One never knows in Washington, but it is likely that the House will try to stop further expenditures in the Program next year, so this may well be a one-time-only offer! The language of the new requests for proposals is being drafted now, but it is likely that one will have only the minimum possible (6 weeks) lead time for submitting an application. The authorization language requires some education and extension component in all grants. The best guess is that the RFP will favor larger, multi-investigator awards in comparison to the usual NRI-type grants. The new program will not be administered directly by NRI. Additional details will be supplied as available (kindly supplied by J. Dodgson).
They are ready for shipment! Set IX is available for distribution now. Check our web site for details. This brings the total number of fluorescent primer pairs distributed by the U.S. Pig Genome Coordinator to 468 pairs. Primer information is at: http://www.genome.iastate.edu/resources/fprimerintr.html . To order Set IX fluorescent primers, please send your request, along with your detailed postal address and your daytime phone number (required), to mfrothsc@iastate.edu . Please continue to make use of them and also be sure to acknowledge their source as it helps to improve cooperation and coordination activities. Please also send requests of new microsatellite primers for genome scans to M. Rothschild so that the next set can include further suggestions from the pig genome community. . ISAG 2000, the 27th International Conference on Animal Genetics will be held July 22-26, 2000 at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Schedule and registration information are available at http://www.cvm.umn.edu/research/isag2000/home.htm . Plans for the swine genome workshop are underway. If you have comments or questions on this workshop please contact Dr. Gary Rohrer at rohrer@email.marc.usda.gov . Limited travel funding to help US participants may be available. Please contact the US Pig Genome Coordinator at mfrothsc@iastate.edu .
Upcoming meetings (for more details see: http://www.genome.iastate.edu/community/meetings.html )
ASAS/ADSA Midwestern Section Meeting, March 13-15, 2000, Des Moines, IA see: http://www.asas.org/midwestern/index.html .
The 14th International Congress Animal Reproduction, July 2-6, 2000, Swedish University of Agriculatural Sciences, S-750 Uppsala, Sweden, Contact: Hans Gustafsson, at hans.gustafsson@og.slu.se .
International Society of Animal Genetics: Minneapolis, MN, USA will be held July 24-27, 2000. Contact Brian Kirkpatrick at bwkirkpat@facstaff.wisc.edu .
American Society of Animal Science National Meeting, July 24-28, Baltimore, MD. For details please contact http://www.baltimore2k.org .
Plant and Animal Genome IX, joint with the NAGRP annual meetings, Jan. 14-17, 2001, Town & Country Convention Center, San Diego, CA. See: http://www.intl-pag.org/ Other events can be found at the following web site: http://www.agbiotechnet.com/calendar/index.asp/
Items for Pig Genome Update 42 can be sent to me by no later than April 10 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.educc: Dick Frahm, CSREES and Roger Gerrits, ARS
U.S. PIG GENOME COORDINATION PROJECT
Paid for by funds from the NRSP-8
USDA/CSREES sponsored
Pig Genome Coordination Programhttp://www.genome.iastate.edu/
Mailing list: angenmap@db.genome.iastate.edu
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