Discussion and project planning

The buffalo sequencing project has been making good progress, with the genome assembly underway and transcriptome sequence available to support genome annotation.  Samples from diverse breeds have been obtained and are being sequenced for SNP and variation discovery and analysis. We now need to plan the next stages of the project: completion of an independent sequence assembly, annotation of the sequence and a detailed analysis of sequence variations. The creation of a SNP panel for use in the analysis of genetic variation and for genetic selection is being discussed. The SNP panel and will only become a reality of we can assemble a consortium of users prepared to commit to buying are reasonable quantity of assays. The final part of the buffalo meeting is intended to be a real workshop, where we identify what we will do next in the project to make sure the work continues to proceed well and we achieve good quality results and a high impact publication.  In the latter context the addition value analyses the can be done need to be identified and those willing and able to do the work found.  Working groups should be created and users of the SNP panel identified.