Happy Holidays and New Year to you, your families and colleagues!! National Swine Improvement Federation Meetings were held in Nashville. TN on December 5-6. About 80 people attended the recent meetings which focussed on developments on many topics for swine genetic improvement including genetic markers, SNP technology and advances for the future. It is expected that NSIF paper will be posted at their web site at (http://www.nsif.com/) in the near future. Sequencing Project Progress is on target to complete in 2009. A total of 95% of the physical map has been selected in 15,882 BAC clones for sequencing. 14,233 of these clones have sequence available, contributing 2,438Mb, which is approximately 85% of the map. We are aiming to select a further 1,100 clones over the next 4-5 months, which will bring the total number of clones for the project to 17,000. In addition, we will be spending some time closing the remaining map gaps - the entire genome is in 166 map contigs. We will make use of assembly software to discover where remaining gaps can be closed, both by the addition of new clones into the map and by the manual manipulation of existing clone sequence. For further details, please go to (www.sanger.ac.uk/Projects/S_scrofa/) or mail pig-help@sanger.ac.uk . (kindly provided Lucy Mathews and Richard Clark, Sanger). Illumina and the International Porcine SNP Chip Consortium are pleased to announce that the porcine 60K SNP panel is available and being shipped. If you did not place an order please do not hesitate to contact Illumina for further information or questions at (http://www.illumina.com/contactMe.ilmn?CS=1 .) PAG XVII, January 10-14, 2009, is nearly here. The program is now posted on the web. Some reorganization of the species workshops on Saturday and Sunday has taken place to avoid overlap and increase attendance to the NRSP8 meeting which is all Sunday afternoon. The main PAG meeting runs Sunday night through Wednesday. See (http://www.intl-pag.org/) for more information and to register. Some funds to assist travelers for the swine workshop may be available on request. USDA Grant update. The 2008 Farm Bill authorized the creation of the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), which replaces the National Research Initiative (NRI). AFRI offers research, education, extension project opportunities that focus on six key areas of importance to agriculture, nutrition, food safety, environment, and rural communities. CSREES released the AFRI program announcement on the agency's Web site (http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/afri/pdfs/program_announcement.pdf) and on Grants.gov. The program announcement provides an overview of the legislation that created the AFRI program and describes programs being offered in Fiscal Year 2009. The program descriptions contain the program priorities, deadline dates, budget limitations, and contact information. The program announcement does not contain all information needed to submit an application. That information will be contained in the AFRI Request for Applications (RFA). The AFRI RFA is anticipated in January 2009. Important information regarding the Animal Genome, Genetics, and Breeding Program: The program name for the Animal Genome program has been changed to "Animal Genome, Genetics, and Breeding" Letters of Intent are required for research priorities 1 through 4 and the letter of intent deadline is March 5, 2009. The proposal deadline for research priorities 1 through 4 is May 14, 2009. Potential applicants are advised to review the entire AFRI program announcement closely to ensure that they understand the full range of programs and grant types available (kindly provided by D. Hamernik and P Burfening) Best wishes and Thanks. As many may not know Dr. Deb Hamernik is leaving CSREES and will be the Associate Dean for Research and Associate Director of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. We thank her for all her great help and wish her well in the future. Upcoming meetings (see: http://www.animalgenome.org/pigs/community/meetings.html)
Items for Pig Genome Update 95 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
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