From: "Rothschild, Max F [AN S]" <mfrothsc@iastate.edu>
To: angenmap@animalgenome.org
Subject: US Pig Genome Newsletter #82
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 13:18:36 -0600

                  P I G     G E N O M E     U P D A T E
     __________________________________________________________________
     A Bimonthly Newsletter of the U.S. Pig Genome Coordination Program

                  **************  No. 82  **************
                  *                                    *
                  *    <angenmap@animalgenome.org>     *
                  *           January 1, 2007          *
                  **************************************
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  1. PAG-XV will be held January 13-17, 2007 at the Town and Country Hotel
  2. QTL database Workshop is planned at PAG in San Diego January 16th
  3. The new pig oligo arrays are here and can be ordered
  4. Pig Genome Update goes electronic only beginning January 1
  5. Swine Sequencing Committee met recently in Toulouse France
  6. The Alliance for Animal Genome Research met in Washington, DC
  7. The National Swine Improvement Federation met in Nashville, TN
  8. The CSREES FY 2006 National Research Initiative (competitive grant)
  9. Upcoming meetings 
===========================================================================

Happy Holidays and New Year to you, your families and colleagues!!

           o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o

PAG-XV will be held January 13-17, 2007 at the usual spot, the Town and 
Country Hotel, San Diego, CA. The program is available at 
www.intl-pag.org/. See the PAG website for more information or to 
register on-line. The deadline for reduced fee registration is Nov. 1.  
The program for porcine genomics can be found at 
http://www.intl-pag.org/15/15-swine.html and looks quite good.  Hope to 
see you there.

           o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o

QTL database Workshop is planned at PAG in San Diego on Tuesday January 
16th at 1PM.  The bioinformatics coordinator and his team will be 
hosting a workshop involving databases actively curating QTL data from 
rat, mouse, chicken, cattle, and swine. The goals of the workshop are 
1) Define the minimal amount of information needed for QTL publication. 
Can we develop MIAME guidelines for QTL publication?  2) Integration of 
phenotype ontologies; and 3) Exchange of curated QTL information.  At 
3PM, they would like to invite all users of QTL databases to come and 
discuss with us what they would like QTL databases to be able to do. 
This is your chance to help set priorities for future development of 
QTL databases.

           o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o

The new pig oligo arrays are here and can be ordered.  Thanks to 
efforts of a number of groups and individuals we have developed a novel 
70-mer oligonucleotide microarray for profiling expression of the pig 
(Sus scrofa) genome. The Swine Protein-Annotated Oligonucleotide 
Microarray has been developed as an OPEN SOURCE collaboration between 
investigators and institutions with an interest in pig physiology. The 
sequences of the oligonucleotides, the consensus sequences they 
represent, and the annotation of the consensus sequences are provided 
at no cost to the entire research community.  New swine oligo arrays 
ordering can now be ordered (http://www.pigoligoarray.org/ ). Please 
note ordering depends on the source of your funding.  Labs associated 
with agriculture (at US Colleges or Universities, US government 
laboratories, or foreign Universities or governments) please order 
using the "Arrays for USDA NAGRP-8 supported activities" button.  If 
you are a PRRS researcher please order using the "Arrays for PRRS CAP 
supported activities" button. Commercial concerns (domestic or foreign) 
or any biomedical researchers (domestic or foreign) please order using 
the "Array for Biomedical and Commercial Applications" resource button.  
Validation of arrays will take place.  Thanks to efforts of a number of 
the swine genome community a validation experiment, funded in part by 
the participants and the USDA Pig Genome Coordinator will take place 
over the next few months.  The plan is to report the information to the 
community at the earliest possible date.

           o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o

Pig Genome Update goes electronic only beginning January 1.  For those 
who used to get the hard copy version of this newsletter, this issue 
will be the first to be distributed in email format only though 
Angenmap (http://www.animalgenome.org/community/discuss)  Acrobat 
.pdf versions (with graphics) are also posted on our website at 
http://www.animalgenome.org/pigs/newsletter/index.html.

           o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o

Swine Sequencing Committee met recently in Toulouse France.  Progress 
on the sequencing continues at an excellent pace and was reported to 
those attending by the project directors.  Minutes of the latest 
meeting are posted at www.piggenome.org .  The website also provides 
access to all of the newsletters and permits direct communication with 
the Project Directors.  There is also an opportunity for users to 
participate more fully and to become a SGSC member. Be sure to attend 
the international swine genome sequencing meeting on Sunday at PAG 
(http://www.intl-pag.org/15/15-swine-seq.html).

           o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o

The Alliance for Animal Genome Research met in Washington, DC in late 
November.  This was the first meeting of the year for the Alliance.  
The accomplishments have been many and Alliance members reviewed 
options for moving forward.  It is clear that new members are needed 
and that the focus will be more towards functional genomics.  More 
details will be made available in the future. 

           o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o

The National Swine Improvement Federation met in Nashville, TN in early 
December.  Several talks covered genetic markers, swine genome 
sequencing and other topics of interest.  The meeting was well attended 
and most producers and company people were interested in the progress 
made through genomics.  Paper can be seen at www.nsif.com.

           o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o

The CSREES FY 2006 National Research Initiative (competitive grant 
program) request for proposals can be found at 
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/rfas/nri_rfa.html . Total FY 2006 
NRI funding was $181.7M. The House FY 2007 budget and the Senate 
Appropriations Committee allocate about $190M for next year's NRI, but 
almost all appropriations bills failed to get through by the Oct. 1 
deadline and it seems likely that another Omnibus Appropriations Act 
will be required, and one can never tell what that may contain. Note: 
next year's FY 2007 NRI applications will require electronic submission 
through http://grants.gov/ (provided by Jerry Dodgson).

           o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o    o

Upcoming meetings (see: 
 http://www.animalgenome.org/pigs/community/meetings.html) 
 
 Seventh International Long-oligonucleotide Microarray Workshop, January 
 7- 12, 2007, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. See 
 http://ag.arizona.edu/microarray/workshopJan2007.html.
 
 Plant and Animal Genome XV, joint with NC-1008 and NAGRP annual 
 meetings, Jan. 13-17, 2007, Town & Country Convention Center, San 
 Diego, CA. See www.intl-pag.org/.
 
 Chicken Development and Genomics, April 12-15, 2007, Barcelona, Spain. 
 See www.lists.bbsrc.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/chicken-genome 
 
 3rd International Conference on Quantitative Genetics, August 18-24, 
 2007, Zheijiang University, Hangzhou, China. Conference Organizers: Jun 
 Zhu(jzhu@zju.edu.cn) and Zhao-Bang Zeng (zeng@stat.ncsu.edu)
 
 Convergence of Genomics and the Land Grant Mission: Emerging Trends in 
 the Application of Genomics in Agricultural Research, September 10-12, 
 2007, Purdue U., West Lafayette, Indiana. See= 
 www.entm.purdue.edu/conference.
 
 International Symposium on Animal Genomics for Animal Health, October 
 23-25, 2007, OIE Headquarters, World Organization for Animal Health, 
 Paris, France.For information contact Cyril Gay, 
 cyril.gay@ars.usda.gov, or Marie-H�l�ne Pinard, 
 pinard@dga2.jouy.inra.fr
 
           <>   <>   <>   <>   <>   <>   <>   <>   <>   <>   <>

Items for Pig Genome Update 83 can be sent to me by no later than February 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
		    http://www.animalgenome.org/pigs/ 

cc: Muquarrab Qureshi, CSREES and Caird Rexroad II, ARS

===========================================================================
                  U.S. PIG GENOME COORDINATION PROJECT
+-----------------------------------+
| Paid for by funds from the NRSP-8 | Web: http://www.animalgenome.org/pig
| USDA/CSREES sponsored Pig Genome  | Mail: angenmap@animalgenome.org
| Coordination Program              |
+-----------------------------------+--------------------------------------