STEELE, R.E.; University of California, Irvine: Genomics of Basal Metazoans

A complete understanding of the biology of animals will require the generation of genomics resources from organisms at all levels of the metazoan phylogenetic tree. Such resources would ideally include complete genome sequences and extensive EST datasets for each species of interest. Of particular interest in this regard are animals in the early diverging phyla Porifera, Placozoa, Cnidaria, and Ctenophora. Animals in these phyla have only recently begun to be examined using genomics approaches. Issues to be considered in this presentation include choosing the basal metazoan species to examine with genomics approaches, the relative advantages and disadvantages of genome sequencing versus EST projects, and the infrastructure required to successfully carry out such projects.