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| NCGA Vice President of Research and Business Development
Richard Glass, right, listens as Dr. Ardent Bement Jr., left,
acting director of the National Science Foundation, announces
a $30 million program to advance sequencing of the maize genome.
Also pictured is Roger Beachy, center, president of the Donald
Danforth Plant Science Center. |
NSF Director
Announces Grant for Maize Genome Sequencing Efforts (10-12-04)
Dr. Arden Bement Jr., acting director of the National Science
Foundation (NSF), on Monday officially announced that $30 million
will be awarded to support maize genome sequencing efforts. Several
staff members from the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA)
were on hand for the event, which was held at the Donald Danforth
Plant Science Center in St. Louis.
The maize genome
grant will be jointly funded by NSF, the U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) and U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA).
Nathan Danielson, NCGA’s director of biotechnology, attended
the announcement and said the grant opportunity will enhance ongoing
efforts to map the maize genome.
“The genome sequencing project is really gaining momentum,” he
said. “Completion of the corn genome is vitally important
to both corn growers and consumers, and this funding moves us one
step closer to completing the sequence.”
Danielson said
the cooperation of three government entities involved demonstrates
corn’s versatility and potential. “It
seems appropriate that these three agencies are involved because
corn is a staple in the agriculture sector, an emergent source
of energy and a significant resource for the scientific community,” he
said.
In July, NCGA launched an industry consortium database at www.maizeseq.org
that features more than 3 million Expressed Sequence Tags and 30,000
full-length cDNA sequences from a number of maize inbred lines.
Most of the government funding provided for past maize genome
sequencing efforts came under the auspices of the National Plant
Genome Initiative (NGPI), of which NCGA played a critical role
in establishing. The objective of the new grant program is to build
on resources discovered in earlier research to develop a comprehensive
sequence resource for the maize genome that will capture the majority
of sequence information in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Proposals are invited from U.S. academic institutions, U.S. non-profit
research organizations and consortia of U.S. organizations with
appropriate research and educational facilities. It is anticipated
that the $30 million will be made available over three years, depending
on the quality of proposals and availability of funds. Proposals
are due to the NSF by Feb. 18, 2005.