About Eu-Sol
Find out more about this project.
An introduction to the aims of EU-SOL and how we plan to achieve them. Plus read about the organisations and people working on this project.
BE: VIB-PSB
Full name: VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology
Location: Gent, Belgium
About Us
The Department of Plant Systems Biology (VIB - Ghent University) is one of the world’s leading institutes in plant biotechnology. It was at the origin of the discovery of the Agrobacterium as a tool for plant transformation. The laboratory is now integrating diverse approaches to further understanding plant processes, with a focus on growth and development. Its research projects are based on the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana but also on a range of crop species. Strong areas of research are molecular genetics, functional genomics and proteomics. The Department of Plant Systems Biology also includes one of the largest bioinformatics groups in plant biology dedicated to gene prediction, genome annotation, genome evolution and network modelling.
VIB-PSB and Eu-Sol
The primary role of the VIB-PSB in EU-SOL is twofold:
- The transformation of raw genomic sequences, produced in the framework of the SOL international initiative, into highly annotated information describing the functions encoded in the tomato genome.
- The production of the experimental tools necessary to streamline the analysis of gene function in the ‘tomato-system’.
To coordinate the bioinformatics efforts focusing on the tomato genome the iTAG (International Tomato Annotation Group) was founded with the aim to achieve the best possible genome annotation. iTAG joins the efforts of all partners responsible for this task in EU-SOL and SOL and takes advantage of state of the art software to predict genes structurally and functionally. The VIB-PSB bioinformatics group is also setting up databases enabling the exchange of data within the community (WP6.1).
The functional genomics group has valuable experience in the construction of T-DNA binary vectors and the creation of large-scale sequence repertoires compatible with high throughput cloning. These resources facilitate the systematic analysis of gene function and the manipulation of gene expression. In the framework of EU-SOL (WP5.3) such tools are primarily implemented for the study of fruit development.
Staff (working on EU-SOL)
- Jeffrey Fawcett
- Lieven Sterck
- Stephane Rombauts
- Yves Van de Peer
- Pierre Hilson
