We briefly noted Greg Baute’s thoughts on the genebank session of the Plant and Animal Genome Conference just ended. ((My own view being that the people working on easing access to genebank information need to be over at Greg’s blog bringing him up to speed.)) For another point of view, here’s the take-home message from Pat Heslop-Harrison, editor of Annals of Botany.
[U]nlike the previous meetings, this week, I’m finding it hard to see what NEW areas we will be publishing from results being presented.
And lest you think that’s overdramatic, Pat’s list of areas that did emerge from the previous 18 PAG conferences is pretty astonishing. Not having been there, I can’t say whether there is indeed a big idea that somehow eluded Pat; it seems very unlikely. If, however, the big idea is how to stay afloat on the sea of genome data, then yes, I guess we are still waiting for the liferafts to inflate.