Genoma a preço de banana

A Genome May Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
Christian M. Tobias
+Author Affiliations

Research Molecular Biologist, Genomics and Gene Discovery Research Unit, USDA-ARS Western Regional Research Center, 800 Buchanan Street, Albany CA 94710, email: christian.tobias@ars.usda.gov

This somewhat rhetorical title must excite many scientists, particularly those with ongoing research on biomass, feedstock development, and lignocellulosic breakdown/fermention. With the costs of sequencing rapidly decreasing, and with the infrastructure now developed for almost anyone with access to a computer to cheaply store, access, and analyze sequence information, emphasis will increasingly be placed on ways to apply genome data to real world problems such as reducing dependency on fossil fuel. For the efficient production of bioenergy, this may be accomplished through development of improved feedstocks. This article will consider more closely the impact of very cheap sequence data (approximately 1USD per genome) on improvement of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), a perennial grass well suited to biomass production.

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