A scientific initiative for the 21st century

By David Brand

It is the science of the 21st century, promising to bring enormous benefits to humankind in curing disease, raising the yield and quality of food crops, improving livestock and aiding the environment. It is a science that promises to revolutionize our understanding of the origins of life and the molecular processes that underlie it.

It is the science of genetics, a discipline that includes the study of the species-based gene map, or genomics. At Cornell, genomics also is being more broadly used to describe an interdisciplinary approach to studying the function of genes.

For Cornell, whose facilities and people have long been engaged in cutting-edge genetics research, the time is entirely right to propose an ambitious effort to lead the university into the next century.

It is called the Cornell Genomics Initiative, a blueprint to make the university a world leader in exploiting the results of DNA sequencing.

Today's edition of the Cornell Chronicle carries an eight-page supplement that explores the complex cross-fertilization of ideas already under way to make Cornell a world leader in genomics research.

The Genomics Initiative task force, made up of 50 faculty members, led by Steven Tanksley, the L.H. Bailey Professor of Plant Breeding, and representing 10 departments, six colleges and two institutes, has presented its implementation plan to President Hunter Rawlings. The university's administration is now close to reaching a decision on a budget for the first phase of the plan.

The plan calls for substantial investments in the Cornell research infrastructure, both at the campus in Ithaca and at the Weill Medical College in New York City. It also calls for forging linkages between departments that rarely interact, the recruiting of specialists for interdisciplinary research teams and the training of students to integrate biology and information sciences.

The first stages of the plan's implementation already are under way with the announcement last week that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is establishing a national gene data research center at Cornell, the Center for Bioinformatics and Comparative Genomics. This will join other genomics research efforts, such as the Program for Comparative Genomics and Evolutionary Genetics and the Institute for Genomic Diversity. At the newly formed Cornell Theory Center Institute for Computational Genomics, a joint initiative of the Ithaca and New York City campuses, advances will be furthered by eight new faculty and research positions to be filled in the coming months.

Next on the agenda might be a facility for breeding transgenic mice. Whatever the final shape of the Cornell genomics plan, one thing is certain, said Rawlings, "there is very strong support for this initiative."