Open AccessA Genome May Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
Author(s) -
Tobias Christian M.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
the plant genome
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.403
H-Index - 41
ISSN - 1940-3372
DOI - 10.3835/plantgenome2009.02.0004let
Subject(s) - biology , panicum virgatum , genome , polyploid , population , microbiology and biotechnology , computational biology , genetics , gene , bioenergy , biofuel , demography , sociology
MARCH 2009 ■ VOL. 2, NO. 1 5 T his somewhat rhetorical title must excite many scientists, particularly those with ongoing research on biomass, feedstock development, and lignocellulosic breakdown/fermention. With the costs of sequencing rapidly decreasing, and with the infrastructure now developed for almost anyone with access to a computer to cheaply store, access, and analyze sequence information, emphasis will increasingly be placed on ways to apply genome data to real world problems such as reducing dependency on fossil fuel. For the ei cient production of bioenergy, this may be accomplished through development of improved feedstocks. h is article will consider more closely the impact of very cheap sequence data (approximately 1USD per genome) on improvement of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), a perennial grass well suited to biomass production.