Moving the Science Forward
Iowa State is one of few places in the country to house and maintain such a large cluster of plant databases. Scientists working on them are scattered across campus, but soon a new, 8,000 square-foot facility will bring Iowa State and USDA-ARS researchers from four of the databases together under one roof. The Plant Sciences Institute has helped to make that happen.
The Crop Genome Informatics Laboratory (CGIL), a USDA-Agricultural Research Service facility, will accommodate about 25 people. It will merge scientists from MaizeGDB (Maize Genetics and Genomics Database), PlantGDB (Plant Genome Database), Soybase and the Soybean Breeder's Toolbox, and PLEXdb (Plant Expression Database).
Each database represents a repository of biological information and tools that can point plant breeders to genes with specific agronomical traits. The databases are accessed and used by researchers on campus and around the world. The benefits and goals of CGIL are to enhance communication and collaboration between the scientists.
"All of us are doing very similar things and we usually talk via email or through appointment," said Carolyn Lawrence, USDA-ARS research geneticist. Lawrence is principal investigator of MaizeGDB and an affiliate of the Center for Plant Genomics. "Imagine the ideas and solutions a group of people interacting together face to face might come up with, rather than talking through emails or phone calls," she said.
CGIL will also have resources that allow live teleconferencing and space to train database users from off campus. When it opens this spring, it will be home to five newly hired computational biologists.
"Our goal is to advance the science of bioinformatics to the point that we can utilize these huge databases for the benefit of other researchers," director of CGIL and USDA-ARS researcher Leslie Lewis said. "The bottom line is to benefit farmers who are growing soybeans, corn, barley and other crops."
There has been a USDA presence on campus working on plant breeding and genetics since 1922. As crop and plant biological data has been collected over the years, it has been brought together into databases, which have continued to grow and evolve. The basis for Iowa State's current plant database recognition and funding were the Zea mays Database, BarleyBase and Soybase. Other databases on campus likely to interact with the ones housed in CGIL are MetNet (Metabolomic Network Database) and MAGI (Maize Assembled Gene Islands).
