International Barcode of Life Project Gets Major Funding Boost in Lead-Up to Official Launch

Guelph, Canada, April 23, 2010 (ots/PRNewswire) - The International
Barcode of Life (iBOL) Secretariat today announced major new funding
for the world's largest biodiversity genomics project. Paul Hebert,
iBOL Scientific Director, said that four Canadian agencies have made
new commitments totaling $35 million, raising total investments by
these funders to $80 million.

Building on an earlier $5 million award, the Ontario Ministry of
Research and Innovation (MRI) today announced another $8.1 million
over the next five years to allow expansion of the informatics
platform for DNA barcode data.

Genome Canada's Board of Directors also announced that it is
extending its support for another year with a second funding
installment of $4.6 million. This follows the $2 million it provided
in 2009-10 to initiate the iBOL project.

"We are grateful for the vision shown by our federal and
provincial governments and their science funding agencies," said Dr.
Hebert. "Their leadership is enabling an initiative that will
transform humanity's relationship with other living organisms."

Dr. Hebert announced that official activation of iBOL will be
celebrated in Nagoya, Japan, on October 24, 2010 during the 10th
Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD). Leaders of iBOL and the CBD Secretariat will sign a Memorandum
of Cooperation establishing a framework for future collaboration
between the two organizations.

Meanwhile, groundbreaking for the new Centre for Biodiversity
Genomics will take place this summer at the University of Guelph.
This $18 million facility, funded by the Canada Foundation for
Innovation and MRI, will house the iBOL Secretariat and key
infrastructure needed to support iBOL research.

Dr. Hebert also welcomed significant contributions from the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada ($1.2
million for new DNA barcoding research programs) and from Canada's
International Development Research Centre ($2.2 million to support
iBOL participation in Argentina, Costa Rica, Kenya, Peru and South
Africa).

Dr. Faustino Siñeriz, Vice-President of Argentina's National
Council of Scientific and Technical Research, said the IDRC support
reinforced his organization's recent decision to upgrade Argentina's
participation in iBOL.

Paul Skelton, Director of the South African Institute for Aquatic
Biodiversity, said that the funding would make African biodiversity a
much more significant part of the iBOL research program.

The International Barcode of Life (iBOL) Project is a research
alliance spanning 26 countries and bringing together hundreds of
scientists in the task of collecting specimens, obtaining their DNA
barcode records and building an informatics platform to store and
share this information for use in species identification and
discovery. By 2015, iBOL participants will gather DNA barcode records
for 5M specimens representing 500K species, an effective
identification system for species of economic and social importance
and the foundation for subsequent progress towards a barcode
reference library for all life.

Contact:
John Chenery
Tel: +1-519-780-5483
jchenery@uoguelph.ca

ots Originaltext: Biodiversity Institute of Ontario - University of Guelph
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de

Contact:
CONTACT: Contact: John Chenery, Tel: +1-519-780-5483,
jchenery@uoguelph.ca