RAPID support of Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center core missions

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

An award is made to Ohio State University to support The Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (ABRC), which collects, curates and distributes resources of the powerful plant model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. This collection of one million stocks includes seed lines, DNA stocks and educational materials. Hundreds of thousands of high quality stocks are annually shipped to the international plant biology community of 27,000 researchers. The ABRC's activities have a broad impact by enabling worldwide cutting-edge advancements in agriculture, medicine and basic research. The ABRC performs rigorous quality controls to ensure the uniformity and quality of stocks, which enables data reproducibility and accountability within the field. The access to resources is provided to researches, teachers, students, companies and the general public through the online distribution system, and the ABRC leads in public education through a number of outreach activities, conferences, workshops, and teacher trainings. This RAPID funding allows the ABRC to continue to provide the plant biology community with a large number of high quality stocks, without a reduction in speed or quality control. This award will support the ABRC's workforce and its core functions to quickly distribute stocks, perform quality control germination and genotyping, and curate the donation of new community resources. As a Living Stocks collection, ABRC is a biological infrastructure resource that is fundamental to a significant community of researchers, including those funded by NSF, other agencies, and internationally. This RAPID award will allow the ABRC to maintain the availability of stocks at a cost that fosters an innovative and creative plant biology community.