Rice Genome Annotation Project by MSU of USA

Michigan State University (MSU) has been funded by the National Science Foundation of USA to annotate the rice genome. The four year award began in January 2004. 
A summary of the project and its goals are listed below. 

As the project develops, they expanded their web pages to provide the community with more information on the deliverables and timelines for annotating the rice genome.

Rice is a model species for the monocotyledonous plants and the cereals which are the greatest source of food for the world's population. While rice genome sequence is available through multiple sequencing projects, high quality, uniform annotation has not yet been generated. Without annotation, researchers will independently annotate regions of interest and be unable to efficiently data-mine the rice genome for relevant features.

The objectives of this project were to provide high quality annotation for the rice genome. They refined and updated the gene models for the est. 40,000-60,000 total rice genes, provided standardized annotation for each model, link each model to functional annotation including expression data, gene ontologies, and tagged lines.

They provided a resource to extend the annotation in the rice genome to other plant species by providing comparative alignments to other plant species. They aimed to provide training in bioinformatics to 60 plant scientists, leveraging their informatic efforts to a broader range of scientists. They developed an agricultural genomics lecture and teaching module for educating local high school students and teachers on the significance of agricultural genomics.

This project was funded by the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program # DBI-0321538.

See also
Genomics.org