The Organelle Genome Megasequencing Program: 1992 - 2009

The Organelle Genome Megasequencing Program (OGMP) has been initiated by an interdisciplinary collaboration involving ten research groups, predominantly in Eastern Canada, each of which is interested in the evolution of mitochondria and plastids and their genomes. A centralized facility serves as the major research hub and is located at the Université de Montréal (UdeM), biochemistry department / Robert-Cedergren Center of Bioinformatics and Genomics.

Research Objectives

Sequencing of mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes from phylogenetically diverse eukaryotes
Development of molecular biology methods for DNA cloning and sequencing
Development of bioinformatics tools for data management and comparative genomics
Taxonomically-broad organelle genome database (GOBASE) that organizes, integrates and validates diverse data related to mitochondria and chloroplasts.

Acknowledgements

Support for the OGMP has been provided by operating and equipment grants from the Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC) and the Canadian Genome Analysis and Technology Program (CGAT), by salary support for G. Burger, MW. Gray and BF. Lang from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR), Program in Evolutionary Biology, and by generous equipment grants from Sun Microsystems and Li-Cor.