Dr. Arden Bement Jr., acting director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), on Monday officially announced that $30 million will be awarded to support maize genome sequencing efforts. Several staff members from the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) were on hand for the event, which was held at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis.

The maize genome grant will be jointly funded by NSF, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Nathan Danielson, NCGA’s director of biotechnology, attended the announcement and said the grant opportunity will enhance ongoing efforts to map the maize genome.

“The genome sequencing project is really gaining momentum,” he said. “Completion of the corn genome is vitally important to both corn growers and consumers, and this funding moves us one step closer to completing the sequence.”

Danielson said the cooperation of three government entities involved demonstrates corn’s versatility and potential. “It seems appropriate that these three agencies are involved because corn is a staple in the agriculture sector, an emergent source of energy and a significant resource for the scientific community,” he said.

In July, NCGA launched an industry consortium database at www.maizeseq.org that features more than 3 million Expressed Sequence Tags and 30,000 full-length cDNA sequences from a number of maize inbred lines.

Most of the government funding provided for past maize genome sequencing efforts came under the auspices of the National Plant Genome Initiative (NGPI), of which NCGA played a critical role in establishing. The objective of the new grant program is to build on resources discovered in earlier research to develop a comprehensive sequence resource for the maize genome that will capture the majority of sequence information in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Proposals are invited from U.S. academic institutions, U.S. non-profit research organizations and consortia of U.S. organizations with appropriate research and educational facilities. It is anticipated that the $30 million will be made available over three years, depending on the quality of proposals and availability of funds. Proposals are due to the NSF by Feb. 18, 2005