Pig Genome Update No. 62angenmap@db.genome.iastate.eduSeptember 1, 2003 |
Pig arrays can be ordered now!! Materials needed to produce a 13,000 element oligo array have been produced. Thanks to the activities of a committee from NRSP (Chris Tuggle, Daniel Pomp (co-chairs), Mike Murtaugh, Diane Moody, Jon Beever and Cathy Ernst) the arrays are nearly ready for distribution to NRSP-8 and NC1004 members. Pig Genome Coordinator funds were used to buy the oligos and will be used to partially fund printing of these oligos on to glass slides. Initial printing of about 400 slides for the community will take place. To insure that the arrays are not wasted, individual researchers can request 20 free arrays and later up to 50 additional ones but they will be responsible for the printing costs of the additional ones. Printing costs will be $20 a slide and will be billed directly to the researcher by the University of Minnesota facility where they will be printed. At this time, some initial testing of arrays is underway to ensure that quality is acceptable. Once the testing is completed (hopefully in less than one month) filling orders will begin getting filled. Two steps are required to order the arrays. To order, please go to the following WWW site: http://www.genome.iastate.edu/resources/array_request.html and place an order. Please note, to get the information on the gene list you must sign the Qiagen non-disclosure agreement (NDA). This likely requires visiting with your purchasing and or intellectual property office on your campus. Shipping will occur after the initial tests on the arrays are completed. We owe a big thank you to all that have helped.
The final FY 2003 USDA-CSREES budget was part of the 2003 Consolidated Appropriations Resolution passed by the Congress earlier this year. The NRI grant program benefited from an increase to ~$160M this year (from ~$120M in 2002) but funding was given to the recent NRI Integrated Program that called for proposals this summer. The President's FY 2004 budget proposes $200M for the NRI program, but this is a notoriously unreliable estimate, as the President always deletes most of the Special Grants programs for USDA and the Congress adds these back in, often making compensatory cuts to NRI. (For example, Special Grants went up from ~$94M to ~$108M this year.) Please note that the deadline dates for the FY2004 Animal Genome and Genetic Mechanisms (43.0) and the associated Animal Genome: Basic Reagents and Tools (43.1) (if available) will be December 1, 2003 (kindly provided by J. Dodgson). New leadership for the NAGRP and good news (nearly) for our NRSP-8 renewal. Dr. Muquarrab Qureshi will be taking over as the National Program Leader for Animal Genetics at CSREES and leader of the NAGRP, NRSP-8. As many of you know we have very much appreciated the efforts of Dr. Deb Hamernik for effectively bridging the gap between Dr. Dick Frahm and Dr. Qureshi. We have also learned that the NRSP-8 renewal has been tentatively approved but budget news is less positive. It appears the budget request will not be increased. This year the individual species coordinators will receive less money, in some cases substantially less but there will be a new coordinating team for bioinformatics at Iowa State University lead by Jim Reecy and colleagues. The 13th North American Colloquium on Animal Cytogenetics & Gene Mapping was held at the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky on July 13-17, 2003. The Colloquium was attended by 29 researchers and students from universities, government research units, zoos and other institutes. The scientific sessions were highlighted with 18 presentations and posters covering the areas of cytogenetics applied in animal evolution, gene mapping, comparative studies, reproductive physiology, disease resistance and mapping tools. The species covered include cattle, chicken, pigs, horse and some zoo animals. The Louisville Zoo definitely provided an intriguing place for this scientific meeting. A big thank you to Terri Lear for hosting. Help us save money!! If you would prefer to just receive an email copy of Pig Genome Update please email Max Rothschild at mfrothsc@iastate.edu or Ann Shuey at ashuey@iastate.edu and we will remove you from the printed mailing list. You can enroll on Angenmap and receive your newsletter and other interesting information. To subscribe to Angenmap, send an email to angenmap-request@db.genome.iastate.edu and put in the Subject line the key word "subscribe" and you will be one of over 950 users of this list serve. Your help in sharing microsatellite primers is still needed!! We have been sharing over 11 primer sets world wide for the past 10 years and have run out of them. However, the demand continues from many places around the world. If you have unused sets and the documentation is still good and you reside in the U.S. please return them to Max Rothschild, 2255 Kildee Hall, Iowa State University, Ames Iowa 50011. Next year's PAG-XII will again be held January 10-14, 2004 in San Diego at the same location. Plenary speakers will begin to be invited soon. If you have speaker suggestions or other comments, please contact one of the organizing committee representatives (Abel Ponce de Leon, apl@umn.edu; Cathy Ernst, ernstc@msu.edu; Bhanu Chowdhary, bchowdhary@cvm.tamu.edu; Noelle Cockett, fanoelle@cc.usu.edu; or Martien Groenen, martien.groenen@alg.vf.wau.nl). Upcoming meetings: (see: http://www.genome.iastate.edu/community/meetings.html )- Inaugural Conservation Genetics Conference of the American Genetics Association, September 14-17, 2003, Front Royal, Virginia. See http://congen2003.ncifcrf.gov/ for more information.
- 15th International Genome Sequencing and Analysis Conference, September 21-24, 2003, Savannah, GA. See http://www.tigr.org/gsac for further information.
- Swine QTL Workshop and National Swine Improvement Federation annual meeting, December 4-5, 2003, Des Moines IA. For details please contact either Ken Stalder (stalder@iastate.edu), Jack Dekkers (jdekkers@iastate.edu) or Max Rothschild (mfrothsc@iastate.edu).
- Plant, Animal and Microbial Genome XII, joint with the NAGRP annual meetings, January 10-14, 2004, Town & Country Convention Center, San Diego, CA. Please see www.intl-pag.org/ for more information.
- 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/
Additional items can be found at: http://www.agbiotechnet.com/calendar/index.asp .
Contributions to Pig Genome Update 63, including short meeting announcements, are always welcome. Please send by September 10.
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
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