Pig Genome Update No. 75angenmap@animalgenome.orgNovember 1, 2005 |
PAG XIV & NRSP8/NC1004 Meeting will be held January 14-18. 2006 at the Town and Country Hotel, San Diego, CA. A draft program is already available at www.intl-pag.org/ and looks to be another good year. Abstracts are due October 7, 2005. The NRSP8 swine committee meets jointly with NC1004 and will be jointly chaired by Joe Cassidy and Zhihua Jiang. It will be held on Saturday January 14, 2006 beginning at 8:00 am in Royal Palm Salon 1 & 2. The International Swine Genome Sequencing meeting will be held Sunday, 15 at noon-2 pm In Royal Palm Salon 5. General information regarding PAG may be found at http://www.intl-pag.org/ . For those wishing to attend the weekend session only, you may sign-up for the $250 advance registration, postmarked or submitted by November 1, 2005. Full registration is $475 submitted via the Scherago International secure web site postmarked or submitted before that date. Some limited travel support may be available for NRSP-8 members. If interested please contact Max Rothschild at mfrothsc@iastate.edu.
The Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals (OMIA) has been revamped and upgraded. The main change has been to move the master database to a MySQL platform at the Australian National Genomic Information Service (ANGIS). The results are: 1) a new web page (http://omia.angis.org.au ) that dynamically queries the master database; 2) access to abstracts (and sometimes full papers) for papers with a pubmed ID; 3) far greater possibilities for reciprocal linking with other web sites and 4) on-line curation, which will enable input from colleagues with specialist knowledge; and which, in time, will give OMIA a life beyond that of its creator, Frank Nicholas. Another important development is that at the request of NCBI, OMIA has been integrated into NCBI?s Entrez search interface at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=OMIA . This has given several new dimensions to OMIA, providing enhancements that are not available from the ANGIS site. The content of the NCBI version will be updated with regular dumps from the master database. These developments have been achieved through the sterling efforts of many people (see http://omia.angis.org.au/acknowledgements.html .) The new master database is still in its infancy. Input from interested colleagues to make OMIA continually better is encouraged. The efforts of Frank Nicholas are greatly appreciated. Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI, http://www.informatics.jax.org/ ) is pleased to announce the release of Version 3.3 of the database. Version 3.3 integrates the data on mouse models of human disease and human disease etiology from OMIM with existing data for mouse genes and strains in MGI. This enhances the exploration of phenotypes, sequence, expression, orthology, and other related data. You can now use three of the MGI query forms (Phenotypes and Alleles, Genes and Markers, Mouse Sequence) to search for existing or potential mouse models of a particular human disease and all human diseases that a particular mouse (genotype plus strain background) can be used to model. Version 3.3 also incorporates data on mouse models sought without success, such as models free from particular confounding diseases or phenotypic traits. The database now links to Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) descriptions of human diseases, syndromes, and conditions. The updated query forms are for Phenotypes and Alleles is: http://www.informatics.jax.org/searches/allele_form.shtml , for Genes and Markers: http://www.informatics.jax.org/searches/marker_form.shtml ; for Mouse Sequence: http://www.informatics.jax.org/searches/sequence_form.shtml and Human Disease Vocabulary Browser: http://www.informatics.jax.org/javawi2/servlet/WIFetch?page=omimVocab& ;subse t=A (kindly provided by David Shaw) Send your success stories to CSREES. Muquarrab Qureshi, NAGRP Leader. is revising the CSREES Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics webpage, http://www.csrees.usda.gov/ProgView.cfm?prnum=3D4467 . He requests short features that highlight the impact of your research on animal agriculture and wellbeing. Pictures and/or web links, links to key publications or other stories are welcome. Please indicate if the work was supported by USDA and/or any federal or industry partnership. Send your material to mqureshi@csrees.usda.gov. Thanks in advance for your help. What is new with USDA grants in Washington, DC. Agriculture Appropriations legislation has been passed by both the U.S. House and Senate, but differences remain to be resolved in Conference Committee and final outcomes remain in doubt. CSREES has just issued the FY 2006 National Research Initiative RFA (competitive grant program). You can access it at http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/rfas/nri_rfa.html . The House approved almost $215 million for the NRI, whereas the Senate approved $190M. Either would be an increase over this years $179.55M, but with recent emergencies, the final outcome could be no increase, or even worse. Please stay tuned and perhaps expect some changes in the FY2006 NRI. The due date for animal genetics and genomics is June 15 next year. In general, CSREES wishes to focus research priorities in the program description, hoping to receive a more targeted set of applications. Concern has been expressed due to the low overall NRI success rate (14.7%). As reported earlier, the Animal Genome Reagent & Tool Development Program is expected to continue. At CSREES request, Coordinators collected and submitted input regarding the top Tools & Reagents priorities for their respective species (kindly provided by Jerry Dodgson) First European Conference on Pig Genomics organized by COST European Network for Pig Genomics PigNet will be in Lodi, Italy on February 20-21, 2006. The objective of this conference is to provide a broad overview of cutting-edge genomics in various areas with a strong emphasis on the pig. This meeting is organized by the PigNet network aimed at connecting search groups involved in Pig genomics (www.toulouse.inra.fr/pignet). On-line registration and poster submission is now open at: http://www.avenuemedia.it/htdocs/linkCONG/Pignet2006/indice_pignet.htm Early registration and poster submission deadline November 18th. AFFY Pig chips available for limited experimentation. In a continuing effort to help researchers try new platforms and ideas the Pig Genome Coordinator will make available 6 chips to qualified requests. To qualify you must be a pig NRSP-8 group and have never used this technology. You must also acknowledge the receipt of these from the Pig Genome Coordination program in all publications. To request a set of 6 chips please contact Max Rothschild at mfrothsc@iastate.edu. NRSP-8 Coordinators talk and plan for the future. As part of efforts to be more proactive, Dr. Muquarrab A. Qureshi, National Program Leader for Animal Genetics in USDA-CSREES, has organized phone conferences between the coordinators. The purpose of these quarterly discussions will be to help plan for the future of animal genomics. Issues to be covered include thoughts on FY 2006 and future NRI RFA, evolving NRSP-8 needs (i.e., resources, funding, etc.), coordinator issues and updates, DC updates, PAG meeting/Business meeting, annual reports and other items. Dr. Qureshi's leadership is appreciated and if you have ideas you feel that need to be discussed please contact your species coordinator or Dr. Qureshi to relay those discussion points. Upcoming meetings (see: http://www.animalgenome.org/community/meetings.html )Items for Pig Genome Update 76 can be sent to me by no later than December 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
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