Plant Ontology and Gramene conducted a Gene Annotation Workshop at the ASPB 2010 conference in Montreal. It was well attended and participants had the opportunity to do hands on annotation exercises using plant and gene ontologies. Presentations from representatives from TAIR, BAR and MaizeGDB introduced the respective databases and highlighted their annotation efforts. Approximately 40 scientists attended the workshop, and 14 of the participants received travel awards from Gramene.

A two-year postdoctoral position is available immediately at Cornell University in the labs of Leon Kochian (Dept of Plant Biology & USDA-ARS Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health) and Susan McCouch (Dept. Plant Breeding & Genetics and Plant Biology) as part of a USDA-AFRI grant entitled “Investigations into the Genetic and Physiological Mechanisms of Aluminum Tolerance in Rice (Oryza spp.)” (PI: Leon Kochian, co-PI: Susan McCouch). Please see the full position description here.

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics (ICRISAT), a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, currently has openings for a research fellow, research technician, and post-doctoral positions in genomics and bioinformatics at their headquarters in Hyderabad, India. For more information, please contact Dr. Rajeev K. Varshney.

Several team members of Gramene will be present at this weekend’s ASPB Plant Biology meeting including at the Plant Genome Resources exhibition booth as well as our Gene Annotation Workshop. Please find us and ask any questions you have!

Gramene is please to announce the following individuals were selected to receive travel awards to attend the Gene Annotation Workshop this Saturday, July 31, from 8:00 AM – 12:00 noon at the ASPB’s Plant Biology 2010 meeting.

World Agriculture (WA) is a new peer-reviewed, review journal, centered on world agriculture. It is available both in print and electronically, free of charge at http://www.world-agriculture.net and the editorial board is seeking contributions from potential authors at editor@world-agriculture.net.

Nature Precedings, "a platform for sharing new and preliminary findings with colleagues on a global scale," has published a short article by Gramene staff scientist Charles Chen entitled "The Gramene Genetic Diversity Module: a resource for genotype-phenotype association analysis in grass species".

Apply for the travel awards to attend Gene Annotation Workshop to be held at the ASPB’s Plant Biology 2010 meeting.

If selected, the travel award will cover the cost of your registration for the entire Plant Biology 2010 meeting. We expect to award 10-20 participants.

Apply online at: http://plantontology.org/workshop/pb2010.html
Application Deadline: July 15, 2010
Workshop name: Plant Ontology and Gramene’s Gene Annotation Workshop
Workshop date and time: Saturday July 31, 8:00 am – 12:00 pm

The Department of Crop & Soil Science at Oregon State University seeks a scientist with strong traditional and molecular plant breeding knowledge and experience to lead a dynamic wheat variety and germplasm development team.

This is a 12-month, 1.0 FTE tenure-track position available at the assistant, associate or full professor level, tenure possible with the latter, depending on candidate experience. For a position description and application procedures, see http://oregonstate.edu/jobs    (posting number 0005761).

Related Web Site: http://cropandsoil.oregonstate.edu
Job Contact Email: Jayne.Smith AT oregonstate.edu
Application deadline: July 31, 2010 for full consideration.
Level: Assistant, Associate or full professor

OSU is an AA/EEO employer.

In collaboration with Ensembl Genomes, Gramene announces an interim update to our 31st build as follows:

• Updated A. thaliana variation database including data from Norborg GWAS, 1001 Genomes Project and WTCHG
• Updated O. sativa japonica variation database including OryzaSNP data
• Updated V. vinifera variation database for new assembly
• Updated BioMart

Also included is a software update from Ensembl version 57 to 58 that provides the following:

• Slider navigation for location views; The ramp navigation on location views has been replaced by a slider, which updates the page dynamically.
• Variations on sequence views; Variations are now coloured by consequence type across all sequence views. These colours match those on the image-based views. Additionally, clicking on a variation on sequence views will display a popup with information about that variation and links to its page.
• Sortable tables (all species); Numerous tables across the site now have sortable and hideable columns. In addition these tables feature pagination, where there are sufficient entries, and entry searching.