The National Science Foundation announced today that it has awarded $50-million to researchers who are creating an online portal to enable far-flung plant biologists to collaborate in new ways. The Web site, iPlant Collaborative, will allow researchers to combine and analyze data from different projects.
The team behind the online portal, which is led by researchers at the University of Arizona, hopes the site will encourage interdisciplinary work. Such research is slated to be discussed in person in April at a conference at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and in subsequent workshops at Arizona. But the Web site itself will facilitate continued interaction and collaboration among scientists.—Lila Guterman