Forging Ahead on Arabidopsis

With completion of the genome sequence of the tiny mustard plant Arabidopsis imminent, researchers began anticipating the logical next step. Meeting in the fall of 1998 and again in January 2000 under the aegis of the National Science Foundation, they drew up a plan called the 2010 Project, which, if successful, would catalog the functions of all of 'the weed's' 25,000 or so genes. Their goal was ambitious: "to understand every molecular interaction in every cell throughout a plant life cycle."1

Barry Palevitz

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With The Scientists' report in hand, NSF was ready when molecular biologists completed the Arabidopsis genome in December 2000.² The foundation made the 2010 Project a reality by soliciting proposals aimed at the plant's functional genomics. Says NSF director Rita Colwell, the agency's effort "is essential to this growing area of biotechnology research and its many applications." On Oct. 1, NSF announced Project 2010's first 28 awards totaling nearly $44 million.

Selected from 106 competitive submissions, the awardees hale from 43 institutions and 20 states. According to Vicki Chandler, president of the American Society of Plant Biologists, "A better understanding [via the 2010 Project] of how plant genes function will have profound benefits for people throughout the world and for our environment. It's a new world we're entering."

The cytochrome P450 gene family is a good example. Mary Schuler of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign wants to characterize Arabidopsis' ...

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