----------------------------------------------------------------------- BIOINFORMATICS COLLOQUIUM School of Computational Sciences George Mason University ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Nematodes, Blueberries, and Chickens: Applied Bioinformatics at the USDA Benjamin F. Matthews USDA, ARS, Soybean Genomics and Improvement Laboratory Bldg 006, Beltsville, MD 20705 matthewb@ba.ars.usda.gov Tuesday, September 23, 2003 4:30 pm Verizon Auditorium, Prince William Campus The soybean crop in the US is worth over $12 billion; the soybean cyst nematode destroys one billion dollars of it each year. Blueberries and strawberries are great on pancakes, but winter cold and disease play havoc on harvests. Almost everyone loves chocolate, but a fungus may destroy it. Chicken wings and pork ribs are for the summer barbeque, but how do we keep chicken and swine healthy? The USDA at Beltsville has a number of applied genomics programs to solve agricultural problems and to improve the health, yield, and properties of numerous plants and animals. Bioinformatics plays a key role in these programs through database management and mining; analyzing DNA sequences; clustering related data; correlating genes, pathways and metabolites; and visualizing data to provide new insights. As applied agricultural science grows, new problems and challenges emerge in bioinformatics and opportunities are genertated for collaborative research between Rwet labS scientists and bioinformaticians. Several GMU students work in USDA laboratories, including the Matthews laboratory that works on the defense reaction of soybean to the soybean cyst nematode, the main theme of this presentation. GMU students used data obtained in the Matthews laboratory to develop an EST and a microarray database, identify contigs, conducted bulk BLAST searches, wrote scripts for finding microarray edges, and developed on-the-fly microarray data mining tools for web-based analysis of data (see http://bldg6.arsusda.gov/benlab/). Information on other potential collaborative projects in applied bioinformatics for students will be provided. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Refreshments are served at 3:30 pm. Find the schedule and directions at http://www.binf.gmu.edu/colloq.html