GenomeHarvest

Mobilizing biomathematics/bioinformatics and genomics/genetics to decipher genome organization and dynamics as pathways to crop improvement.

This project builds on a few recent success stories of the Agropolis community in the production of crop reference genome sequences. These landmark achievements together with the current possibility for massive resequencing data production have opened new opportunities to understand with unprecedented resolution, the organization and dynamics of these genomes and the related keys to a more efficient exploitation of their diversity in breeding programs. However, this also brought up new challenges since the full exploitation of these data requires development of new biomathematic / bioinformatic concepts, methods and tools. We want to tackle these challenges thanks to the strength of Montpellier as a platform of excellence in agricultural sciences, but also in mathematics, medicine, ecology and evolutionary sciences.
The objective of the proposed project is to establish a collaborative framework between these various scientific sectors making use of carefully selected representative, economically important and scientifically attractive biological models. We will focus on aspects related to the frequent inter(sub)specific events involved in the history of crops and develop methodologies to decipher the inter(sub)specific structure of crop genomes and its impact on character transmission. We will provide infrastructure and training sessions to project members, partners, and scientists of the South in order to disseminate and share the new tools and methods developed.

 

Dates: 
01/2016 - 10/2019
Coordinator(s): 
Angélique D'hont, Manuel Ruiz
Funding: