Meeting on the Future of Plant Genome Sequencing and Analysis to be held May 18-20, 2011 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spg Hbr NY

Investigators

Abstract

The last few years have seen a revolution in DNA sequencing instrumentation and technology. In that short time period sequencing instrument capabilities have increased more than 1000 fold and are likely to continue to increase about 5-fold each year for the next several years. As such it is now affordable and efficient to sequence to high coverage large plant genomes that had previously been prohibitively too expensive and complex to attempt. However, analysis methods have not improved nearly as much during the same time period and a variety of technical limitations of these new DNA sequencing instruments make it even more difficult to carry out whole genome sequencing of novel genomes (de novo sequencing). These limitations also make it more difficult to use the new instruments to carry out older clone based strategies for de novo sequencing, such as BAC-by-BAC approaches. The purpose of this meeting to be held at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory May 18-20, 2011 are to assess the current state of next generation sequencing in terms of de novo, whole genome plant sequencing, what can be expected to develop in the near future, and then determine which advances are needed to allow these exciting technologies to be used to carry out de novo sequencing of entire complex plant genomes. The meeting will bring together stakeholders with broad range of expertise in high-throughput sequencing and genomics, plant biology, bioinformatics and databases drawn from the academic, private and international sectors. Meeting outcomes will be captured in the form of a report to be developed by participants that will be submitted for publication to Genome Research.