Central Coordination Unit of the Next Generation Sequencing Competence Network

• Subject Area: General Genetics and Functional Genome Biology
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 423957469

Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) will continue to be a key technology in the life and medical sciences. Coupled with cutting-edge bioinformatics (BI), NGS will be essential in terms of advancing scientific excellence and capacity at German universities. To facilitate centralized NGS services, the German Research Foundation (DFG) has recently funded four NGS Competence Centers (NGS-CCs), including the West German Genome Center (WGGC), a collaboration led by the University of Cologne that also involves the Universities of Bonn and Düsseldorf; the NGS Competence Center Tübingen (NGS-CCT) at the University of Tübingen; the Dresden-Concept Genome Center (D-CGC) at the Technical University Dresden; and the Competence Center for Genomic Analysis Kiel (CC-GA-K) at the University of Kiel. To administrate the second phase of the DFG NGS initiative, the four centers are required to build a Central Coordination Unit (CCU) and establish an NGS competence network (NGS-CN).Therefore, the two main tasks within this proposal are A) establishing and running the CCU with four major objectives: 1) NGS project support with an emphasis on budgeting and financial aspects, 2) project organization and administrative work, 3) reporting to the DFG, and 4) developing and maintaining an NGS-CN web presentation; and B) designing the NGS Competence Network (NGS-CN) with the two objectives of 1) developing the optimal legal structure, and 2) developing common concepts for data security and data management.We thus propose the NGS-CN, with its CCU as the coordinating body, as a consortium of renowned universities with NGS excellence and well-established DFG-funded NGS infrastructure. In view of the ever expanding NGS landscape, we are convinced that the NGS-CN approach represents the optimal strategy in terms of developing, advancing, and providing this essential technology.

• DFG Programme: Further Instrumentation Related Funding
• Applicant Institution: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
• Leader: Professor Dr. Joachim L. Schultze