Genome funding delay

Three weeks after the German government announced that 300 projects would share €135 million (USD $166 million) in the National Genome Research Network's (NGFN) second round of funding, the details of the awardees have not yet been made public.NGFN officials are being vague about the reason for the delay, but it appears they may be hoping to convince the German Ministry of Education and Research to increase genome funding by an additional €20 million to 25 million (USD $25 million to 31 million).The ministry funded NGFN in 2001 with a 3-year grant of €180 million (USD $221 million). Its aim is to find genes involved in the onset of major diseases.At a May 11 press conference to announce the second round of funding, the ministry said the first tranche had resulted in more than 80 patent applications, 1500 scientific articles, and more than 90 project ideas. Uta Strasser, head of project management at the NGFN, told The Scientist this week that she hoped the successful research projects would be posted on the NGFN Web site in the next 2 to 3 weeks, and that money would be distributed this summer and early fall.As to why the list had not yet been posted, Strasser said: "There are still some small discussions going on." She declined to reveal what the discussions were about but said: "Before we publish the list of projects, we want to make sure it's a full list."Strasser also noted that Andreas Barner, head of NGFN's external steering board and vice chairman of pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim, had said at the press conference that the research ministry would increase funding by €20 to 25 million for additional genome research projects. "We had a lot more applicants than we could fund with €135 million. Some good applications we could not fund," Strasser said.The coordinators of the 300 new projects approved for funding have been officially notified, while coordinators of unsuccessful applications were told by telephone, she said. "Those [nonfunded] projects are on hold, but would be funded if additional money comes in," she said.But the chances of the ministry adding to the €135 million it already has allocated may be slim. Florian Frank, ministry spokesman, told The Scientist that the NGFN grant should be looked at in the context of the federal government's battle to lower its budget deficit. "I think the amount we awarded [NGFN] 2 weeks ago is a big figure," he said. "We are not planning to increase it." He said he wasn't aware of the NGFN lobbying for more money but added, "It's a big ministry. I cannot deny the possibility."NGFN is divided into five networks, each focusing on a specific disease group: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diseases of the nervous system, diseases due to environmental factors, and diseases due to infection and inflammation.In round one, NGFN research was divided about equally between systematic genome research and disease research, Strasser said. In the latest round of allocations, disease research is given more emphasis, plus about 8% of total funding is going toward new exploratory areas of genome research.The €135 million allocation for round two was announced in October. Not all researchers agreed that the round one money was well spent. Anna Wobus, a coordinator of the German Research Foundation's stem cell program, told The Scientist in November that NGFN results were "thin." She said closer collaboration between scientists and clinicians was needed before NGFN could succeed in meeting its objective of developing disease treatments.

Genome funding delay

Germany has given 135 million euros to 300 genome projects, but who was funded?

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