The New York Plant Genomics Consortium is an inter-institutional collaboration scheme combining the expertise of scientists from four research and educational institutions specializing in evolution & genomics: New York University, The New York Botanical Garden, the American Museum of Natural History, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The Consortium often juggles multiple active projects at once. Our first funding source was received in 2004 from the U.S. National Science Foundation grant “Comparative Genomics of Seed Evolution” No. 0421604. The aim of our first collaboration was to exploit genome diversity to discover new genes involved in the development of seeds, a trait of important agronomic interest.

Our work has now expanded from Gymnosperms, to plants covering all branches in the tree of life. Our transctiptome data will divulge the secrets of plant survival and proliferation, including samples from the rare Wollemia nobilis, found in the deep damp gorges of the Wollemi National Park, to the fragile flowering plants of the arid Atacama Desert.