NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC) today announced it has been awarded £6 million ($9.2 million) to develop big data infrastructure for three collaborative programs in agricultural plant and animal genomics.
The UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has committed £7.5 million to develop big data capabilities for crop and livestock genomic studies. The new funding will improve the storage and curation of large datasets to provide scientists with access to primary research data, TGAC said in a statement.
One project, led by Sarah Ayling in collaboration with European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), has been awarded £2 million to develop an open-source platform to enable genomics research in crop science.
This work will "help to speed up the breeding process, producing more sustainable crops sooner," Ayling said in a statement.
Another project, led by Federica Di Palma in collaboration with the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh and EMBL-EBI, has been awarded £1.9 million to develop an infrastructure to provide researchers with reference genomes of economically important animals.
"Farm animal genomic resources will not only facilitate research in basic animal biology, but will also aid developments in the animal health industries, including animal breeding, food, and sustainable agriculture," Di Palma said.
The third project, co-led by Robert Davey and Tim Stitt in collaboration with the University of Warwick, University of Liverpool, University of Nottingham, University of Arizona, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center, will receive £1.78 million to connect the UK with the US' data infrastructure for plant sciences.
In October, 2014, BBSRC awarded TGAC £307,411 to develop informatics tools to help identify viruses.