Funding finalized for two Alberta genomics projects

The Alberta government has announced its contribution to two genomics projects worth $25.2 million over four years. The projects comes from Industry Canada through Genome Canada and Alberta Advanced Education and Technology through Genome Alberta. One project, worth $11.6 million and led by the Univ of Calgary's Dr Gerrit Voordouw, will examine the biological processes at work in the province's various hydrocarbon deposits with the aim of reducing water use, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing the extraction of clean burning natural gas from coal beds. The second project is worth $13.6 million and co-led by the Univ of Alberta's Dr Peter Facchini. Facchini will assemble a multidisciplinary team to identify the genes of up to 75 plants for sequencing to be used in yeast to produce industrial-scale volumes of valuable, biologically derived compounds.