This
listing is intended to capture, store and link to documents relating to
Metabolic Engineering projects being sponsored by federal agencies. The
group interested in these projects is comprised of scientists from
eight federal departments or independent agencies with responsibilities
for furthering metabolic engineering research. This resource serves as
an inventory of these efforts.
The
Metabolic Engineering Project Inventory listing contains records, one
per project. Each of the entries represents a research project in the
area of metabolic engineering (ME) funded by a federal agency. The
listings contain information on the grantee, the project purpose, grant
(amount and time-frame) and the supporting federal agency or department.
Each
project is categorized by funding department or agency, supporting
institution and principal investigator. The records are organized by
each of these categories, with expanded descriptions reached through
use of the navigational links in some cases. For projects funded from
two joint announcements there are separate documents for each
project. However, the tables list only the names and institutions
of the Principal Investigators (PI). Co-PI names are listed in the main
documents for each PI, with a document for each Co-PI linked to the
main document for the PI. The document for a Co-PI can only be reached
through the link from the main document for the PI of the project.
Because of these linkages, some information common to the project, for
both PI and Co-PIs, is not repeated in the document for the Co-PI.
Projects
described here often have been supported by more than one federal
agency. Therefore, to accommodate the varying needs of the funding
agencies, some projects will have been broken into discrete elements,
each having a unique identifier, sometimes with separate titles and
descriptions. Where appropriate, funding amounts shown for each
investigator are aggregate amounts from the different sources. This
Inventory provides separate documents for each separately funded
element, but links these projects in the tables and cross-links them
within the separate document pages, where such pages exist.
Metabolic
engineering is an emerging approach to the understanding and
utilization of metabolic processes. As the name implies, ME is the
targeted and purposeful alteration of metabolic pathways found in an
organism in order to better understand and utilize cellular pathways
for chemical transformation, energy transduction, and supramolecular
assembly. ME typically involves the redirection of cellular activities
by the rearrangement of the enzymatic, transport, and regulatory
functions of the cell through the use of recombinant DNA and other
techniques. Much of this effort has focused on microbial organisms, but
important work is being done in cell cultures derived from plants,
insects, and animals. Progress in ME depends upon knowledge that
includes conceptual and technical approaches necessary to understand
the integration and control of genetic, catalytic, and transport
processes. While this knowledge will be valuable as fundamental
research, per se, it will also provide the underpinning for many
applications of immediate value.
The
Metabolic Engineering Working Group was created in 1995 by the
Biotechnology Research Subcommittee (BRS), an Inter Agency Coordinating
Committee under the office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in
response to a need identified in their report, "Biotechnology for the
21st Century: New Horizons". This Working Group has already held two
interagency workshops on the subject and released an Interagency
Announcement of Opportunities in Metabolic Engineering . At the second
of its annual workshops, a need for compiling information on current
research in metabolic engineering was identified and the creation of a
data resource was recommended. This Inventory is the response of the
Working Group to that need.
Federal
Program Managers, workgroup members, and researchers will use this
database in different ways. Program managers will look for projects
related to those they are funding or intend to fund and for potential
applicants to whom they might address invitations to apply to
announcements. The workgroup members will look for trends in research
funding in order to plan future joint announcements of opportunities
and to plan other activities, such as workshops, based on current
research. Information on principal investigators may help in selecting
speakers for meetings. Researchers will want to see which agencies are
funding specific types of projects, in order to focus their research
plans.
It
is expected that the listing will be updated as each agency completes
its annual funding cycle. New projects will be listed at that time. The
Working Group has not yet determined whether, and for how long
completed projects will be retained in the listings. Users are
encouraged to comment on this issue by email to the technical contacts
listed below. Current projects will, of course, remain posted for the
duration of the project. Information on specific projects will be
supplied by the primary funding agency. Due to the nature of the
Working Group and its Interagency Announcements, all listed projects
should have more than one funding agency, but one agency may be
designated as the lead for a given component of the project. That
agency will be responsible for the information to be listed on the
project. Contacts for each responsible agency or department will be
provided in each project document.
The
contact for inventory content is Dr.
Mark Segal, U.S. EPA at 202-564-7644.
The
web site manager is Stephen Gould,
WTEC, 240-351-3815.
Agency
contacts for the Metabolic Engineering Working Group are as follows: MEWG Contacts
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