Pig Genome Update No. 55

angenmap@db.genome.iastate.edu
July 1, 2002

1. The NC-220 annual meeting held at Iowa State University
2. The IPVS at Ames and the World Pork Expo Des Moines, IA
3. Draft of renewal proposal for NRSP-8 on the Way
4. Personel Update in PGCP
5. New tools are being considered for sharing
6. Upcoming meetings 

The NC-220 annual meeting of the swine breeding regional research project was May 31-June 1 at Iowa State University. Hosted by Jack Dekkers and Max Rothschild, there were many interesting talks by scientists from several experiment station reports dealing with genomics. This extremely successful project (and predecessors) ended after 65 years and will be merged with the pig functional genetics project (NC-210) to form NC-1004 on October 1, 2002. A Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary, will be elected soon to help run the project. The new administrative advisor is Associate Dean Dr. Bert E. Stromberg from the University of Minnesota. Messages for the group can be posted at the listserv at NC1004@lists.ahc.umn.edu .

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The Power of Pigs!! The International Pig Veterinary Society (IPVS) met in Ames, Iowa June 2-5 followed by the World Pork Expo June 6-8 in Des Moines, Iowa. The IPVS meetings brought Over 1,900 participants to discuss aspects of veterinary medicine related to health, management and swine production. The Role of Genomics was a featured talk among several other presentations on a variety of subjects including several on specific diseases. The World Pork Expo featured production and health talks, good barbecue and a number of opportunities to discuss genetics with the world's leading breeding companies and supplies of genetic testing.

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Its time to write the renewal proposal for NRSP-8! The new objectives will focus on: 1. Mapping and comparative genomics as they lead to the development and use of full genome sequences; 2. Functional genomics; and 3. Informatics. Cathy Ernst will coordinate the overall writing team. Draft proposals are already being circulated and will be revised over the summer with E-1 (effort) forms collected from Ag Experiment Stations by October. The final and complete proposal must be submitted to Area Administrators by Dec. 1, 2002. More information is available at http://www.wisc.edu/ncra/manual.htm .

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A big thanks goes to Dr. Yuandan Zhang who has served as our web page manager and assistant to the Pig Genome Coordinator for the past two years. Yuandan will be starting his new research position in the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit, The University of New England in Armidale, NSW, Australia. For those of you who wish to send him your regards his email will be: yzhang4@metz.une.edu.au. As you perhaps may remember, Dr. Zhiliang Hu, previously served at this job during 1997-1999 and has been serving as a part time consultant to us during the past three years. He has now agreed to take more responsibilities as the Database Manager and Assistant to the Coordinator, among his other commitments. We are having new discussions on future developments on the Pig Genome Database. If you have anything to suggest or have any questions about the web site or database, you can reach him at hu@db.genome.iastate.edu .

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New tools are being considered for sharing. One of the projects the US Pig Genome Coordinator is now working on is to make either gene chips or microarray materials available to each lab at a reduced cost. To date several parties have suggested some interest. If you have interest, please contact the US Pig Genome Coordinator at mfrothsc@iastate.edu . In addition, new pig microsatellite diversity primers (set XI) were made in response to requests and suggestions concerning pig diversity research and selected from markers across all 19 pig chromosomes. See http://www.genome.iastate.edu/resources/fprimerintr.html for more information on all sets of primers. A new public porcine expressed sequence tagged (EST) database, a set of tools for EST analysis and a web query tool to this database has been developed (http://pigest.genome.iastate.edu ).

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Upcoming meetings (for more details see: http://www.genome.iastate.edu/community/meetings.html ) Additional items can be found at: http://www.agbiotechnet.com/calendar/index.asp .

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Items for Pig Genome Update 56 can be sent to me by no later than August 20 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: 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 Program
http://www.genome.iastate.edu/
Mailing list: angenmap@db.genome.iastate.edu


© US Pig Genome Coordination Program