267 The United States National Science Foundation Project on Developing Tools for the Study of the Fagaceae: Castanea, Quercus, and Fagus P.H. Sisco R.R. Sederoff The American Chestnut Foundation Forest Biotechnology Group 160 Zillicoa St., Suite D North Carolina State University Asheville, NC 28801 Raleigh, NC 27695-7247 USA USA J.P. Tomkins J.E. Carlson Dept. of Genetics and Biochemistry Schatz Institute of Forest Genetics Room 312 BRC 323 Forest Resources Building 51 New Cherry Road The Pennsylvania State University Clemson, SC 29634 University Park, PA 16802 USA USA T.L. Kubisiak M.E. Staton Southern Institute of Forest Genetics Clemson University Genomics Institute 23332 Highway 67 Biosystems Research Complex Saucier, MS 39574 Clemson, SC 29634 USA USA F.V. Hebard S.L. Anagnostakis The American Chestnut Foundation Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station 14005 Glenbrook Avenue P.O. Box 1106 Meadowview, VA 24361 New Haven, CT 06504 USA USA W.A. Powell C.P Smith Environmental and Forest Biology Bioinformatics Research Center SUNY-ESF North Carolina State University Syracuse, NY 13210 Raleigh, NC 27695-7566 USA USA Keywords: Fagaceae, chestnut, oak, beech, genomics, BAC, SNP, SSR, cDNA, genetic mapping, physical mapping, association mapping, pyrosequencing, microarrays Abstract The National Science Foundation of the United States has funded a four-year project to develop genomic tools for the Fagaceae, the beech family, which includes chestnut (Castanea), oak (Quercus), and beech (Fagus). A large amount of cDNA sequence of Castanea, Quercus, and Fagus is being generated by pyrosequencing, a new technique that can produce large amounts of DNA sequence at a lower cost per nucleotide than conventional Sanger-Coulson sequencing. New molecular markers, primarily Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms, are being discovered, and three Bacterial Artificial Chromosome Libraries of Castanea mollissima cv. ‘Vanuxem’ have been generated and are available for purchase at the Clemson University Genomics Institute. All sequence information generated by the project will be available on-line at www.fagaceae.org. INTRODUCTION The National Science Foundation of the United States has funded a $2.7 million project to develop genomic tools for the Fagaceae, the beech family, which includes chestnut as well as oak and beech. The project began 1 September 2006 and will terminate 30 August 2010. Members of the project include scientists from four public Proc. IV th Int’l Chestnut Symp. Eds.: Qin Ling and Huang Hong-wen Acta Hort. 844, ISHS 2009