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Conference: Genomics of Forest and Ecosystem Health in the Fagaceae
Nov 10-13, Raleigh, NC
Topics will center around recent genomic and genetic discoveries in the Fagaceae as they relate to forest and ecosystem health. Get more info.
van Eck Scholarships Available
Available to graduate students for forest pathology and restoration genetics or molecular genetics of plant development.
Welcome to the Fagaceae Project homepage. The purpose of this site is to provide background and updated progress on the development of genomic tools for the Fagaceae family of trees, and to provide centralized access to our expanding Fagaceae genomic database.
Background
The family of forest trees (the Fagaceae) that includes the chestnuts, oaks and beeches, dominates the hardwood forests of the northern hemisphere. These tree species have significant economic and ecological value. We will study the chestnut genome as a model for the Fagaceae and we will compare chestnut to oaks, beeches and other forest trees. A major goal is to advance the breeding of an American chestnut resistant to Chestnut Blight Disease. Chestnut Blight Disease, caused by Cryphonectria parasitica, created the greatest ecological disaster in the history of the United States.
Development of Genomic Tools
Our work will focus on genetic and physical mapping of the chestnut genome. We hope to identify the physical locations of genetic loci that contribute to blight resistance. An integrated map would become a platform for targeted genome sequencing. This project could provide a model using genomics to study the basis of resistance to pathogens and pests that threaten the world's forest resources. This project also provides access to downloadable copies of genomic and protein databases of common Fagaceae species including oak, beech, chestnut and more. Also provided are publicly available Fasta and Blast servers for dedicated similarity searching against the public Fagaceae databases. Blast results are available of all Fagaceae databases found on this site against the Arabidopsis, NCBI Non-redundant, and Swiss-Prot databases. Mined SSRs are available as well.
Progress
The objectives set out in this project should be completed by the third quarter of 2010. For more information on the progress that has been made, please visit our progress page. A flow chart has been created that visualizes the responsibilities of each collaborating organization and how data will flow from one group to another in order to complete the goals of the grant. A Gantt chart further outlining when each task will be completed is also available.