Caenorhabditis Genetics Center

Project Summary/Abstract—Resource Component The objective of the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center (CGC) Resource Component is to promote research on the small metazoan Caenorhabditis elegans by curating important, genetically characterized nematode stocks and distributing them upon request to researchers and science educators. The CGC is the sole general stock center for the curation and distribution of C. elegans. The CGC currently houses 23,000 different strains, and they are immensely popular: ~30,000 strains are distributed to thousands of laboratories each year, and the majority are sent to user groups in the United States. Strains are distributed upon request through an on-line ordering system with a scheme of user fees in place to help defray costs and support CGC activities. Researchers in all locales supply us with important strains that they have generated. If the CGC were not performing this curation and distribution service, strain sharing would be extremely inefficient and costly; the burden of filling requests would be placed upon individual labs, likely leading to delays in the exchange of research materials. Moreover, the conservation of many published strains might be in jeopardy. This would be a great loss, because research in this model organism has led to fundamental insights into basic biological mechanisms, including programmed cell death, axonal guidance, and the mechanism of RNA interference in animals. C. elegans has also provided insights to mechanisms of cancer progression and neurodegenerative diseases, and this nematode serves as a key model for illuminating the biology of parasitic nematodes, a major health concern. In addition to enhancing research progress, the CGC Resource Component offers major cost- savings to the NIH as a whole, to individual research labs funded by NIH, and to all other labs in the community. These savings are achieved through decreasing redundant labor by making new mutations and mutant combinations readily available, decreasing labor and other costs by providing an economy-of-scale approach rather than having individual labs responsible for disseminating useful strains, safeguarding strains made with NIH grant support through curation in redundant sites, and facilitating the use of this relatively low- cost model by investigators working primarily in high-cost models such as mice.