On the Map

Mention genome-mapping, and Indiana is probably not among the first locations that spring to mind. This situation may be about to change, as work done at the Indiana Center for Insect Genomics puts Indiana on the map with research that has huge potential for improving human health and agricultural productiveness. Formed with seed money from the 21st Century Research and Technology Fund, the Center brings together scientists and resources from the University of Notre Dame and Purdue University, as well as from corporate partner Eli Lilly Elanco. Center director Dr. Frank H. Collins, George and Winifred Clark Chair in Biological Sciences at Notre Dame, is a world-renowned researcher of insect genomes and leads a team of scientists from across Indiana and around the world.

According to Dr. Jeanne Romero-Severson, Associate Professor in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Department of Agronomy at Purdue, the 21st Century Fund grant was instrumental in helping the Center establish a collaborative framework. The Center helps coordinate activity within the state among people who work on insect genomes. Since problems solved in mapping one insect genome will likely bear on mapping another, the Center can help stimulate early work on important insects that may lead to full-blown genome sequencing projects. The bioinformatics infrastructure and databases created through the Center allow scientists from within and without Indiana to share information—and help display the research as a product of Indiana.

The initial 21st Century Fund grant helped the Center establish credibility that led to further grants from federal agencies and from as far afield as Europe. One such grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has already yielded important results, in the form of a complete genetic sequence for Anopheles gambiae, the primary mosquito species that transmits the malaria parasite to humans. The significance of this research, grounded in the work of Dr. Collins, cannot be overstated, as malaria afflicts well over 500 million people and causes nearly three million deaths a year, more than 90 percent of which occur in infants and young children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Other important insect projects are either already underway or in the planning stages. Of the many human diseases transmitted by insects, West Nile virus has made a recent troubling appearance in the Midwest. The major mosquito transmitter of the disease has already emerged as the potential target of a genome project, and early work being done at the Center should position Notre Dame and Purdue researchers as leaders in the field. Equally important is the significant work being done on insects that attack and destroy crops, both in the field and stored grain, with enormous financial and human impact worldwide. Research is in progress on major pests affecting crops such as soybeans, corn, wheat and fruit and on a weevil that attacks stored grain. In addition to its effect on human health, such research has an array of important commercial applications—development of new classes of pest-specific and environmentally safe insecticides is one of the most promising—that should generate even greater activity in Indiana’s growing life sciences industry and help boost the state’s strong agricultural sector.