Funding has been obtained from the NSF Frontiers in Biology (FIBR) program to
create BeeSpace here at Illinois.  This 5 year, $5M project will create a knowledge
acquisition environment online to complement BeeBase and extend the value of the
bee genome sequence.  The PI is Bruce Schatz, School of Library and Information
Science, who helped build WormBase.  Other co-PIs have expertise in statistical
genomics, computer science, outreach, and biology (Susan Fahrbach and Gene
Robinson).  They will perform a functional analysis of all the roles of a honey bees
within their society by combining microarray analysis, large-scale brain in situ
hybridization, and a novel approach to informatics that links all sources from current
genome databases to the existing scientific and natural history literatures on honey
bees.

Info obtained from web: http://beespace.uiuc.edu

This project will analyze social behavior on an unprecedented whole-genome scale,
using Apis mellifera, the Western honey bee, as the model organism. Honey bees
live in a complex society governed by an age-related division of labor, with each
individual assuming many roles during her lifetime. Both genetic heredity and
environmental conditions determine what role a bee performs, and when she
performs it. The biology research will generate a unique database of gene
expressions for all social behavior, recording brain gene expression for hundreds of
individuals, each with a specific societal role. These microarray experiments utilize
the recently sequenced genome, supported by state-of-the-art statistics. The
informatics research will develop an interactive environment to analyze all
information sources relevant to bee social behavior. These include genome
databases from honey bee and related organisms, linked to complete scientific
literature relevant to insect behavior. New text mining technology will integrate
molecular description with information from physiology, behavior, neuroscience, and
evolution.

The BeeSpace environment will enable users to navigate a uniform space of diverse
databases and literature sources for hypothesis development and testing. The
software system will go beyond a searchable database, using statistical literature
analyses to discover functional relationships between genes and behavior. This
research will enable all scientists who study bee genes to live on the frontier of
integrative biology, where biotechnology enables routine expression analysis and
bioinformatics enables functional analysis unconstrained by pre-existing categories.

The broader impact of the interactive environment for functional analysis will be
tested in an international community of laboratories studying honey bees and
related organisms. Outreach for BeeSpace will provide integrated research and
education experiences at the graduate and undergraduate levels, plus training
courses and minority outreach at high school and middle school levels.

The BeeSpace project is funded by a $5M, 5-year grant from NSF FIBR, Frontiers in
Integrative Biological Research program at the National Science Foundation,
September 2004—August 2008.


Zachary Huang
http://www.msu.edu/~bees

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-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
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