This is one of two awards providing renewed support for the Fungal Genetics Stock Center (FGSC), which has been located at the University of Kansas Medical Center (UMKC) since 1985. At the end of the first year of support, the FGSC will move to the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) and responsibility for its operation will shift to a new Director. Funds awarded to the UKMC support the final year of operation at that institution as well as the cost of moving the collection to UMKC. The award to UMKC supports operation in the subsequent four years. The support insures the continued maintenance and improvement of the collection which includes genetically marked strains of Neurospora, Aspergillus, Magnaporthe and, to a lesser extent, strains of other filamentous fungi. The ready availability of more than 16,000 reliable genetic stocks from FGSC has stimulated the use of these organisms for basic and applied research in fungal genetics and systematics, as well as molecular biology, biochemistry, and other related fields. A number of strains in the collection are also used for educational purposes. In addition to these strains, the FGSC maintains and distributes individual cloned DNAs and libraries of cloned genomic and cDNAs from filamentous fungi. A modest fee is charged for strains and DNA clones. The Fungal Genetics Newsletter (48 issues to date) and a printed catalog of available cultures and services are also prepared by the FGSC. The collection's staff maintain a web site (www.fgsc.net) that includes a list of all strains in the collection as well as other information of interest to fungal geneticists details of useful methods, recent issues of the Fungal Genetics Newsletter, abstracts from recent fungal genetics meetings and bibliographies of papers related to fungal genetics.
