Plant & Animal Genome IX Conference

Poster: Sequencing & EST
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GABI - THE GERMAN PLANT GENOME RESEARCH INITIATIVE

¹ MPI of Molecular Plant Physiology, D-14424 Golm, Germany

² MPI for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestr. 73, D-14195 Berlin, Germany

³ IPK Gatersleben, Corrensstr. 3, D-06466 Gatersleben, Germany

⁴ Institute of Crop Science and Plant Breeding, University of Kiel, Olshausenstr. 40, D-24098 Kiel, Germany

⁵ MIPS at the MPI of Biochemistry, D-82152 Martinsried, Germany

The Genome Analysis in the Biological System Plant-GABI is a joint research program supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German industry. GABI was started in the late 1999 and is being funded for a period of four years. Out of 190 submitted pre-proposals an international panel of reviewers recommended 71 projects with a total financial volume of more than 80 million DM for further support. Two main research areas are bunching these activities. The Research Area I covers fundamental research activities, while the Research Area II comprises more applied activities. Research is being conducted on eight different plant species (Arabidopsis, barley, sugar beet, rape-seed, potato, poplar, maize, and rye) focussing on the model species Arabidopsis and barley. Nearly 44% of the total financial support are being spent for the research in these two model species to support 27 single projects. Three resource centres are developing and providing access to technologies and are generating resources. Furthermore, two bioinformatics resource centres are providing platforms for data handling and storage, and developing tools for their analysis and display. 30% of the financial resources in GABI help the activities of the resource centres. The remaining 26% are being spent in order to support the research in the six other species with a special focus on sugar beet. A patent and licence agency was founded in GABI in order to commercialise and protect the intellectual property rights.