What is the VLPB initiative?

The VLPB initiative is a pre-competitive endeavour focussed on the development of a pre-competitive ICT infrastructure that allows storage, integration, retrieval and usage of plant genomics data and information for plant breeding R&D. The VLPB should offer a practical infrastructure for end-users in breeding companies and academia.

Who is the VLPB consortium?

The consortium is a pre-competitive, public-private partnership. The results of activities and projects within the VLPB are available to all consortium partners. The VLPB consortium is initiated by: Rijk Zwaan B.V.; Bejo Zaden B.V.; UvA Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences; WuR Department of Plant Breeding; and TTI Green Genetics. Currently also HZPC, C. Meijer B.V., Averis Seeds B.V., and NCB Naturalis are partners. The VLPB consortium is open for companies, academia and other organisations with an interest in plant breeding and related ICT.

What are the objectives?

• Develop a pre-competitive public-private partnership consisting of plant-breeding companies and knowledge institutes, with strong ties to initiatives in the domains of e-bioscience, bioinformatics and ICT-infrastructure
• Create a sustainable pre-competitive, dry-lab research infrastructure securing innovation in the plant-breeding industry and associated knowledge infrastructure.
• Initiating a dedicated community devoted to further development of the green e- sciences, relevant to plant breeding.
• Build (generic) problem-solving environments to efficiently mine and use genome-associated information and other resources.

What is the approach

All developments will be conducted by relative short projects with a clear and confined aim. Each aim is completely demand-driven defined by the end-users and translated by the e-supporters. Each project will result in a dedicated problem-solving environment (PSE) in which VLPB end-users can conveniently address the associated problem.

View the VLPB poster as presented at the TTI Green Genetics Networking Event on September 21, 2011 in Nieuwegein.