DNA Barcode initiative

"Europe will be a central node, and to qualify for this it is necessary to raise 25 million dollars in Europe," Crous says. "Europe needs to play a central role in this initiative. We have amazing collections in museums and herbaria that have been gathered over the past centuries - the lion's share of all the species known on Earth are represented in European collections. We also have a strong tradition of taxonomy, so we are in a uniquely powerful position to make a real impact in this field."

At the EuroBioForum meeting Crous will put forward proposals for a Network of European Leading Laboratories (NELL) to undertake most of the barcoding work. "At the moment we have eight or nine European countries with co-ordinators committed to this proposal" Crous says. "What we want to achieve at the EuroBioFund meeting is to get commitment from industry and governments that support biodiversity research to commit to this European barcoding campaign."

As technology develops, barcoding will become increasingly simple and widespread, Crous predicts. "One of the ultimate goals is to develop a hand-held DNA barcoder," Crous says. "This sounds very futuristic but is not as far-fetched as it might seem. Already people have portable technology for gene sequencing. There are wireless technologies that would be able to send the barcode data to a central database for matching and receive the result. What is still required is miniaturisation of the whole platform - the entire sample preparation. But various groups are working on this."

A hand-held system would allow people to carry out instant identification of specimens in the field - in a rain forest, for example, or, closer to home, in a hospital where microbiologists need to identify pathogenic organisms. For instance, an increasing numbers of immuno-suppressed patients are developing infections with organisms that were not previously known as pathogens. Fast and reliable identification of novel diseases can save those patients lives.

"Barcoding is the future," Crous concludes. "It would be a sin if Europe, with its rich collections and its unique expertise in taxonomy, does not play its part."

EuroBioForum

EuroBioForum is the annual conference of EuroBioFund, a joint initiative of the European Science Foundation and the European Commission, set up to address the gap between research and finance. Its objective is to form strategic alliances between research and research sponsors (public and private) to develop European wide research programmes on selected research themes.

Pedro Crous

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