Why is NASC at RISK in 2010?


The problem

In April 2010, our GARNet bioinformatics grant expires. This covers all of our catalogue, our server infrastructure, all data curation and our affy analysis assistance and public release processes. Given that AtEnsembl was not funded at the last BBSRC round we have chosen to apply to the BBRF round (details to right).

Appeal

We received 20 letters of support - thank you to everyone that helped:

Chris Needham, Leeds; Thomas Greb, Vienna; Matthew Terry , Southampton; Youn‐Sung Kim, Warwick HRI; Herman Hofte, INRA; Anna Amtmann - Glasgow; Mike Blatt - Glasgow; Joel Milner - Glasgow; Hugh Nimmo - Glasgow; Christian; Hardtke - Lausanne; Sophien Kamoun - Sainsbury lab; Jonathan Jones - Sainsbury lab; Silke Robatzek - Sainsbury lab; Niko Geldner - Lausanne; Hugh Shanahan - Royal Holloway; Margret Sauter - Kiel; Pascal Genschik - CNRS; Raphael Mercier - INRA; Colette Tourneur - INRA; Lorenzo Frigerio - Warwick; Olga Kulikova - Wageningen; Miltos Tsiantis - Oxford; Charlie Hodgman - CPIB.

Background

All of NASC's services are funded by external grants supplemented by cost-recovery. We have a seed service physical grant that allows us to handle and distribute seed that will finish in 2012.
ALL of our bioinformatics including the catalogue, AtEnsembl and the NASCarrays database have been funded from additional grants since the 90's, mostly by the BBSRC but also from the EU and Gatsby. This model is now being tested - earlier this year (2009) our AtEnsembl grant was not funded in responsive mode.

If you need more information please contact us.

Why not use cost-recovery?

We have already worked hard to adopt cost recovery methods and have been quite successful - the Affy service is break-even and the seed service cost recovery is ~20%. We could not survive by increased cost recovery, this would require prices more than an order of magnitude higher for seeds.

Please help


Useful Information



    BBRF Call schedule:


    Outline application deadline
    - 29 September 2009 done - full application approved
    Feedback received from the BBSRC BBR panel:
    • The proposal seeks to support and improve the bioinformatics infrastructure at NASC which is a valuable resource for the UK and international Arabidopsis community;
    • The Panel was concerned about creating duplicate access to an Affymetrix platform that can already be accessed via a range of methods. The Panel commented that the PI should consider a move towards complete cost-recovery model for array services;
    • The Panel was not convinced that the array platform provided a unique edge to NASC;
    • Evidence of the future role in expression analysis as array usage declines should be included;
    • The full proposal should have clear objectives and deliverables;
    • The full proposal should demonstrate clear support from the user community;
    • It was unclear from the outline how NASC will interface with the TGAC;
    • A named advisory board should be in place for the full proposal;
    • The management structure is appropriate;
    • The Panel commented that the proposal was over resourced, and not costed appropriately. The proposal should be "cost-effective" and requested financial resources should be fully justified;

    Full application deadline
    - 7 January 2010 done
    Assessment of full applications
    - Mid March 2010
    Grants awarded
    - End March 2010