A National Science Foundation award has been made to The Ohio State University, under the direction of Erich Grotewold, to support the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (ABRC, http://abrc.osu.edu). The ABRC was established in 1991 with the mission to collect, preserve, propagate and distribute diverse resources of Arabidopsis thaliana and related species. With continuing support from the NSF, the resources have expanded to include seed, DNA, protein and cell culture stocks as well as educational materials, resulting in the current collection of almost one million stocks. The ABRC serves a very large and dynamic community of over 20,000 plant researchers worldwide with a common goal to understand the basic processes of flowering plants, as well as to apply this understanding to further crop improvement.
The activities of the Center are essential to support collective efforts of the community to functionally characterize the Arabidopsis genome and genes. This is reflected in increasing number of orders, which have reached almost 100,000 stocks annually. The Center continues to expand the existing collections and to identify potential interest for new stocks, driven by community needs. Realizing the strategic position of the ABRC in the Arabidopsis and plant community, the Center started several educational activities (K-12 and College-level) to increase the appreciation for Arabidopsis and plants in general in the younger generations, activities that will be continued and expanded during the next five years.
