Transcript iBOL in the USA 2013

iBOL in the USA – June 2013
• USA barcoding community is diverse
• USA funding sources are diverse
• Large sequencing operations at
Smithsonian, AMNH (NYC), and
NYBG
• Many small sequencing operations,
increasingly including federal
management agencies (e.g., FDA)
• Much sequencing at Guelph
Projects
• Not many USA national scale
projects
• Many contributions to global
taxonomically-focused projects
• Lepidoptera of North America
• Urban Barcoding Project, Cold
Spring Harbor
Smithsonian/CBOL
• Transition of funding for CBOL secretariat
– Sloan to part grant and part SI federal
• Federal barcoding funds
– Core lab support and internal competitive grants
– Projects include Chesapeake biodiversity, zoo
animals, tree plots, mining USNM collections
• Google Barcode of Wildlife Project
• Pacific Science Inter Congress, Fiji, July 11
Barcode of Wildlife
• Law enforcement tool for wildlife trafficking
• Google global impact grant ($3 M for 2 years)
• Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Mexico, Brazil,
Thailand
• Reference DNA library ca. 2000 endangered
species (CITES and national priorities) and
8000 related species
• Engaging law enforcement (and research
institutions)
Challenges
• Federal budget “sequester”
• Maintaining barcoding principles (e.g.,
heuristic library thru standardization) versus
chasing the latest NGS trends – finding our
place in biodiversity genomics
• Data access/publication versus dark taxa
– New federal funding policy (OSTP February memo)