Tropical Genome Biodiversity Program

Shelly Schuster, ICBR J. S. Davis, BotanyDan Brazeau, ICBR Gayle Brazeau, Pharmaceutics Bill Farmerie, ICBR Jim Maruniak, Entomology Mark Whitten, FL Museum John Dame, Vet Pathobiology Mike Parsons, ICBR Jon Stewart, Chemistry Andy Ogram, Soil and Water Science

We have begun the process of discussing a possible program which would foster the interaction of faculty interested in tropical genomes from the varied perspectives of ecosystem management, development of new therapeutic agents and vaccines, and microbial, plant and animal biodiversity. New technologies in genomics, bioinformatics, and high throughput screening have created entirely new opportunities for the analysis of complex organisms, and their genomes, as well as for exploiting their possible economic and health care potential.

It is our hope to assemble input from the broadest possible array of UF faculty so that we might articulate an interactive program that can have benefit to the entire campus research community and the State of Florida. We hope to create an opportunity for new avenues of interaction that will result in research that can exploit these new technologies.

We are requesting that you make any interested faculty aware of these ongoing discussions so that we can include them in this planning process. We are planning to have a meeting during the last week of April so that we can continue the planning process. Please have interested faculty contact any of the listed individuals, or the group by email (schuster@biotech.ufl.edu) or phone (392-8408) so that we can include them in our discussions.

Thank you for your help.