i5K Coordinating Group

Conference Call Agenda

Sept 19, 2018

10:00-11:00 (EDT)

We need to continue on-going efforts to develop funding, especially positioning i5K to take advantage of potential funding opportunities resulting from the Earth BioGenome Project and other global or local genomics efforts. Specifically, there are new funding opportunities such as

Ag100Pests to discuss.

Attending: Kevin Hackett, Marian Goldsmith, Sue Brown, Glenn Hanes, David Hawthorne, Jay Evans, Monica Poelchau, Brad Coates, Ulli Bernier

  • Funding
    • USDA "Ag100Pests" (Kevin)
      • There is a list for selection going on for leps, but not for other groups. Anna is working extensively on this.
      • Need to put a list together and share it with other experts
      • There is some encouragement from ARS that funding should come through with next year's funding
      • There is some experimental work with PacBio that will help pilot some of the methods for Ag100Pests. Costs could be lower, less input DNA may be required
      • NAL/University of Arizona was funded to generated a functional annotation pipeline tuned towards insects – should result in a pipeline, accessible for everyone, within 12 months
    • NSF (Gene, Mike, Sue, fringy)
      • Sue contacted POs at NSF – they steered her towards computational biology RFPs at NIH/NIFA. There is no RFP to address right now, (and may not be for 1-2 years), but she is working with a group to start thinking about this. She is working on some of the educational parts that could transfer over if and when an RFP comes up
    • Other, e.g., NHGRI
      • Jay – NIFA/NIH RFP. The call from NIFA is tuned towards animal (not insect) genomics. NIH side may be more promising -would not hurt if the proposal also had an agricultural impact - but should still be geared towards human health. Food safety/vectors may be a hook.
  • EBP Update (Gene, Kevin, fringy, Jon)
    • Workshop
      • Sometime in November in London – Kevin and Gene will attend
    • Letter of Intent (Gene, fringy)
      • Gene will take the lead on this on behalf of the i5k coordinating committee.
    • Genomics-enabled Success 1-pagers (Kevin, Gene)
      • In order to pitch success stories to funders. Kevin may be able to procure an example? It seems like money will be available soon – but flashy success stories are hard to find and articulate. For example, malaria is not yet cured in spite of efforts. Would be good to loop in a PR/communications person who could identify what would work for the general audience.
    • Genome 1-pager White Papers (Kevin, Gene)
      • Initiatives – what are hot issues that need to be funded? Idea is to have these available if/when money is available, or to pitch when they are going to funders

Time permitting:

  • Technical Forum, idea from ESA (Kevin, Monica, Moni, Anna)
    • Monica P still needs to work on setting a slack channel up – on her radar

NEXT MEETING: October 17, 2017

10:00-11:00 am EDT