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.
The web developer/administrator is
Sam Monbo, WTEC, 410-276-7797
The web designer/consultant is Tom
Bartolucci, WTEC, 410-276-7797
Agency contacts for the Metabolic
Engineering Working Group are as follows:
MEWG
Contacts
