Wednesday, 2 March 2022 New Horizon Europe project at the University of Primorska - The Biodiversity Genomic Europe (BGE)
Biodiversity Genomic Europe (BGE) is a project that connects 33 partners from continental Europe, the UK, Canada and the USA.
It brings together two large consortia, the first one is the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA; https://www.erga-biodiversity.eu), which is an important part of the Earth Biogenome Project (EBP; https://www.earthbiogenome.org). The aim of ERGE is to modernize laboratory and bioinformatics tools for sequencing the reference genomes of European species and thus make an important contribution to the cataloging and characterization of the genomes of the entire eukaryotic biodiversity of the Earth over a period of ten years.
The second consortium is BIOSCAN (https://ibol.org/programs/bioscan/), a part of the International Barcode of Life (IBOL; https://ibol.org) network that aims to determine the DNA bar code sequences of global biodiversity as a new tool for taxonomic identification of species. The DNA barcodes will be placed in the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) - a repository that includes a reference library of DNA barcodes that can be used to assign identities to DNA sequences of unknown origin.
The University of Primorska participates in the BGE project as the coordinator of the Slovenian consortium ERGA, which connects eight Slovenian institutions working in the field of molecular ecology and nature protection: The University of Maribor, the University of Ljubljana, the Faculty of Environmental Protection in Velenje, the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and of Art, the National Institute of Biology, the Forestry Institute of Slovenia and the Natural History Museum of Slovenia. As a hotspot for biodiversity, Slovenia will be able to determine the entire reference genomes of as many as 80 species as part of the project, which will be selected by researchers from members of the Slovenian consortium.
The University of Primorska also participates in a citizen science campaign, implemented within the Step Change project (https://stepchangeproject.eu), funded by the Horizon Europe 2020. The project leader is Prof. Elena Bužan, who is also the BGE project manager for Slovenia and the coordinator of the Citizen Science Committee at ERGA.
The € 20 million project will start on 1 September 2022 under the coordination of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center from the Netherlands. The aim of the project is to identify over 800 reference genomes of European species and over 10,000 DNA bar codes.
Prof. Elena Bužan commented: "We are very proud that in a very short time we managed to connect all Slovenian institutions working in the field of genomics and nature protection in this consortium, and thus including Slovenia as a biodiversity hotspot. I believe that this is the beginning of remarkable cooperation in Slovenian, European and global arena, and among researchers that are working in the field of genomics and biodiversity. The project will also contribute to raising awareness among various stakeholders (ministries, industry, NGOs, citizens) about the importance of genetics and genomic biodiversity for acquiring new knowledge and development in the fields of bio economy, agriculture and medicine. It will also raise awareness on the importance of genetic design as an important factor in adapting species to upcoming environmental changes. New knowledge will greatly enhance the value of research, the connection between researchers and end-users, and, perhaps most importantly, trust between various stakeholders.”
Congratulations to our researchers!
