The International Cotton Genome Initiative workshop I, at PAG XIII

The International Cotton Genome Initiative (ICGI) Workshop I was held at Plant and Animal Genomes (PAG) XIII on Sunday 16 January 2005. ICGI has held two biennial meetings at which the membership has had the opportunity for scientific exchange, the first at Nanjing, China, in 2002, the second at Hyderabad, India, in 2004, and the next will be held in 2006 (host country to be selected). The ICGI workshop at PAG XIII offered the unique opportunity to interact and draw upon the resources of the wider genomics community. As the first official PAG-ICGI workshop, and as a fledging organization, it was considered appropriate to review the origins of ICGI and what its future should be. In this process, we wanted to draw upon the experience of other crops with regard to how they have established and maintained their cooperation and how they have gone about establishing their goals. We also wanted to draw upon the current activities of ICGI to evaluate its role in international exchanges. From its beginnings, ICGI recognized the need to be inclusive and has encompassed activities from germplasm resources to the delivery of information and materials to the user community. The following six topics were discussed: (1) why and how ICGI came about; (2) international models of cooperation in other crops; (3) how other crops have established their genomic activities; (4) the role ICGI has played in international interactions; (5) the role ICGI has played in interactions with the private sector; and (6) what is the role and scope to which ICGI should strive? The complete presentations will be posted on the ICGI website; http://icgi.tamu.edu. ‘The International Cotton Genome Initiative (ICGI): how did we get here and why?’ was presented by Curt L. Brubaker, from the Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research, CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia. In February 2000, a small group of cotton scientists met in Canberra, Australia, to discuss why molecular markers were not being used effectively in cotton breeding. It was agreed that the limited application of molecular markers in cotton breeding was symptomatic of a broader issue. Cotton genomics, in general, had lagged behind other crops. The impressive gains achieved in Arabidopsis, rice, wheat and mammalian genomics demonstrated that the practical and analytical tools were at hand to progress cotton