home Funding Homeland Security Funding Opportunity – Reference Genome Sequencing

Homeland Security Funding Opportunity – Reference Genome Sequencing

Just a quick note about a funding opportunity of potential interest.

The Department of Homeland Security “BAA 12-04  Whole Genome Approach to Microbial Forensics (WGAMF)” program has a grant called “Whole-genome sequencing to capture the global biodiversity of human, plant and animal pathogens (bacterial, viral and fungal) in support of microbial forensics analysis”

https://baa2.st.dhs.gov/portal/public/Menu.action?page=baa_current_solicitations

Here’s the description from the DHS page:

“The genome is the most specific signature of an organism and it can be used to unambiguously distinguish a particular organism from all others. Because of the ability to distinguish between closely related organisms, whole genome sequencing is particularly relevant to the field of microbial forensics. Whole genome sequencing holds great promise for forensic analysis in terms of accuracy in pathogen identification and characterization, but this approach is limited by the databases available for genome sequence comparisons. Some pathogens, such as Bacillus anthracis have many sequenced genomes available for comparison, but for other pathogens, whole genome sequences are either rare or not available in public databases. In addition, there is no accepted standard for capturing and archiving the genomes of contemporary pathogens as they emerge. A more comprehensive catalog of genomes is needed that covers the full diversity (phylogenetic, functional, spatial, and temporal) of pathogens, as well as a long-term strategy for sequencing and archiving the genomes of contemporary pathogens as they emerge. “

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David Coil

David Coil is a Project Scientist in the lab of Jonathan Eisen at UC Davis. David works at the intersection between research, education, and outreach in the areas of the microbiology of the built environment, microbial ecology, and bacterial genomics. Twitter

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