Integrating New Model Systems

From IPC_Public

The plant community has invested heavily in very few model plant systems. Our sampling of plant diversity for -omics research has focused on few angiosperm families, which represent only one branch of the plant evolutionary tree. While there is no question that the investment in few systems has had a tremendous impact on plant biology, there are many interesting questions in plant biology cannot be addressed with these systems alone. With sequencing costs dropping rapidly, we are poised to generate whole genome sequences of many species. There are at least two grand challanges/issues for the plant community to consider. The first: how do we best promote the development of new models systems that are key to understanding the emergent properties of plants, especially given the current funding climate? Second, how can morphological, -omics and other data from new models be seamlessly integrated into the cyberinfrastructure to be developed such that biologists can use their time testing new hypotheses and developing new theories in plant biology rather than organizing data? For example, can a common platform useful for any genome sequence and comparative genomics be developed and adopted?

Jody Banks 31 March 2008