DOE scraps plans for 4 Genomic Science Facilities

The Office of Science of the US Department of Energy this week scuttled plans to create four user facilities to support its Genomics:GTL program, and instead will create two facilities to support research in bioenergy.

The Department of Energy's GTL (formerly, Genomes to Life) program, initiated in 2000, is an effort to support systems biology research for benefits in energy production, carbon dioxide absorption and the transformation of radioactively contaminated waste, according to the agency's website.

So, instead of its less than a year old plans for creating four facilities, for research and operations in protein production, molecular imaging, proteome analysis, and systems biology, the agency will instead focus on using its research resources to find ways to produce biologically based renewable energy resources. This change of plans comes in response to the President's Advanced Energy Initiative and a review of the DOE's GTL program by the National Research Council of the National Academies. (Click here to read the report.)

For background, the DOE initiated the Human Genome Project and operates the Joint Genome Institute. The GTL program has received $240 million annual funding from 2002 to 2006, which has supported some 75 research projects, with 65 percent of the monies going to scientists at DOE operated labs, and 35 percent to researchers at academic and private research institutions.

Originally, the four planned facilities were described by the DOE as:

• A facility for the Production and Characterization of Proteins and Molecular Tags;
  
• Facility for the Characterization and Imaging of Molecular Machines;
  
• Facility for Whole Proteome Analysis;
  
• Facility for Analysis and Modeling of Cellular Systems.
  
  

According to a statement, the DOE's Office of Science is formulating a plan for one or two vertically integrated centers with a focus on bioenergy research with the hope that these can be operational at a date earlier than the originally planned Facility for the Production and Characterization of Proteins and Molecular Tags.

Having visiting the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Lab's proteomics facilities in 2004, we came away impressed by the sheer power of the instrumentation gathered there and the ingenuity and smarts of the scientists using it. We can only hope that this kind of government effort can continue to support research that not only will have positive benefit for US energy needs, but also for health and the advancement of life sciences.