The objective of this SAVI is to create a "Virtual Institute" that will support the synthesis of an entire eukaryotic genome. Writing a complete eukaryotic genome remains daunting and beyond the proven DNA synthesis capabilities of any individual lab. In analogy to the Human Genome Project, these first efforts will require the coordinated activities of many individual centers. This proposal will put in place the research coordination infrastructure to enable the complete synthesis of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome within 5 years at sites spanning the USA, Asia, and Europe, at institutions ranging from four-year liberal arts colleges to major research institutions, thereby capturing the imagination of undergraduate students, fellows, staff and faculty members worldwide.
The specific objectives of this SAVI initiative are to solidify current collaborations between researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Loyola University of Maryland, and international partners in China, India and Europe. The strategic outsourcing of the synthesis of individual chromosomes guarantees that the entire yeast genome is completed within a five-year period with leveraged funds and resources from the US and international participating partners and funding agencies.
Broader Impacts - The broader impacts of this SAVI project are the first-ever ability to ask and answer deep questions about fundamental properties of chromosomes, genome organization, gene content, the function of RNA splicing, the distinction between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and numerous other aspects of genomes and evolution. The "synthetic yeast" will play an important role in practical applications, ranging from a test-bed for focused biological problems to a chassis for future synthetic biology projects. Notably, yeast is the preeminent organism used for industrial fermentations, with a wide variety of practical uses, including ethanol production from agricultural products and by-products. As the only effort of its kind outside industry, this project provides a unique and very important service in keeping the knowledge in the Synthetic Biology field public through open source availability of all reagents and protocols without intellectual property restrictions. This SAVI effort is unique also in training researchers in genome-scale synthetic Biology. An innovative "Build A Genome" course was developed and implemented at Johns Hopkins University, which has since been offered at Loyola Univ. of Maryland, and two universities in China. The SAVI imitative will also offer opportunities for multi-disciplinary training of students, postdocs, and researchers, and will encourage international exchange.
This award is designated as a Science Across Virtual Institutes (SAVI) award and is being co-funded by NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences, Directorate for Engineering, and Office of International Science and Engineering.
