About Us

Background

The International Milk Genomics Consortium (IMGC) was initiated in 2004 by the California Dairy Research Foundation (CDRF) and the University of California Davis (UCD) to provide a collaborative and interactive pre-competitive resource platform for researchers and research end-users to accelerate the understanding of the biological processes underlying the mammalian milk genomics.

The Consortium’s collective aim is to support the advancement and use of knowledge by facilitating the transition of milk genomics discoveries from experimental data into usable benefits within the fields of interest of our member’s organizations worldwide; and ultimately to provide science-based explanations behind the evolutionary design of milk, and to discover how and why milk is beneficial.

Mission

The Consortium provides a collaborative, interactive and pre-competitive resource platform for researchers and research end-users to accelerate the understanding of the biological processes underlying mammalian milk genomics and facilitates the transition of that knowledge into usable benefits within the fields of interest of our sponsoring members' organization worldwide.

Primary Objective

Build an online genomics bioinformatics resource that provides useful and reliable curated annotations for the scientific and industrial community.

We will establish a well-organized, up-to-date and interactive one-stop bioinformatics resource Web Portal to identify, annotate and curate genes in the milk genome responsible for milk synthesis, assembly, secretion, biological activity and nutrient provision.

The Portal

The Portal will be the primary means for the Consortium to achieve its mission.  The Portal will include both Consortium-derived information and pertinent public information from the outside including articles, bibliographies, educational information, meeting information, and etc.

Our goal for this Portal is not to reinvent the overall schemes developed by similar efforts (i.e., mouse, bovine and other genome resources), but rather to apply the best features of these to the for milk genomics data.  This allows us to concentrate on annotation rather than database development.  For example, the Gene Ontology Consortium represents an on-going effort to establish common vocabularies by which gene function can be described.  We anticipate affiliating our Portal with this effort, among others.

Secondary Objective

Organize an annual Symposium to facilitate and promote communication and exchange among academics, industry and government in the developing field of milk genomics.

Symposium

We will organize an annual “International Milk Genomics and Human Health Symposium” to promote the advancement of milk genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics knowledge tools.

The Symposium plays a supportive role for the Consortium to achieve its mission.  Our goal is to bring the international milk genomics community together, facilitate sharing information and viewpoints, and provide direction for the Consortium on a regular basis.  This allows us to build a community with a shared vision on milk genomics. 

The target audience is Consortium sponsors, and industry/academic members, as well as all others active in the area of milk genomics.  The Symposium targets between 75 to 150 registrants to allow for personal interaction and manageable organization.

Areas of Research Interest & Related Industry Impact

Coordination of the pre-competitive resource platform by the Consortium will help develop a baseline database and provide a foundation for the development of an exclusive/competitive platform to our members.

Identify and compare genes associated with milk production and with the genetic variation of milk quality traits such as milkfat and milk protein.

Potential industry impact:

• Development of novel genomic tools for accelerated and high performance breeding programs.
• Enable the use of natural genetic variation in milk production and milk quality traits to produce value-added milk, e.g., milk more suitable for cheesemaking or with specific properties to enhance human health.

• Enhanced value-added new dairy products with health-providing bioactives that have widespread applications from infant formulas to supplements for human food and animal feeds.

•  Tools for better and inexpensive selection of LAB strains for cheese and fermented dairy product manufacturers.

• Strategies to deliver optimized probiotics thrugh milk and dairy products for human consumption and animal feeds.

• Development of rapid and accurate diagnostic tools for surveillance of track pathogens/spoilage bacteria.

• Broaden and strengthen nutrition-realted claims asociated with milk and dairy components.
• Improve functionality of dairy products by increasing the bioactive components in dairy.
• Improve manufacturing benefits by identifying new accurate tools for value-added milk components isolation and designing novel dairy products.

• Inform novel formulation of enhanced dairy products with demonstrable health benefits to the consumer such as amplifying satiety signals found in milk to combact obesity and accompanying metabolic disorders.

• Improved lifelong animal health and welfare by decreasing milk production losses due to disease.
• Ensure consumer confidence in the wholesomeness of milk and dairy products by preventing and/or eliminating animal diseases.

• Improve overall sustainability by decreasing the carbon footprint of dairy cattle through lower greenhouse gas emissions.
• Reduce cost of milk production.
  

Strategies

Key strategies of the Consortium stating how we will achieve our mission and objectives form the master business plan. The plan is designed to maximize competitive advantage.

• Take the lead to annotate and curate milk genes using various computational tools to assign functional meaning to uncharacterized datasets and to create information links between different datasets.  To perform this task, we will initially recruit one data analyst 'content manager' with a solid understanding of both computational analysis methods and milk genomics to efficiently annotate and organize datasets.  Depending on demand and available funds, additional data analysts will be added.  Small tasks will be done by graduate students under the supervision of the Consortium’s Web Portal Content Group.
• Seek co-annotation and co-curation opportunities whenever possible.  We will look for opportunities to establish co-annotation and co-curation relationships with other databases.
• Seek to involve our members in a curatorial role to assure high quality control.
• Work with other databases to ensure the Portal is comprehensive and up-to date.
• Use existing and readily available software and tools rather than establishing new ones.
  
• Maintain the Portal as the central communication resource for all information about the Consortium, as well as training, support and the sharing of expertise.
• Identify suitable funding opportunities and coordinate extramural grant applications by Consortium members for collaborative multi-center milk genomics projects.
• Encourage participation of outstanding research groups that will significantly contribute to Consortium’s mission.
  

Consortium Structure and Organization

IMGC is an unincorporated and non-profit entity.  It is financed by the sponsoring members’ organizations.  It is structured to optimize and feed back linkages necessary for the proper development and implementation of its programs.  IMGC will, for all intents and purposes, be driven by its mission and defined objectives. 

IMGC will be managed by the California Dairy Research Organization (CDRF), a non-profit corporation that manages the research activities of the California dairy industry in the areas of basic and applied dairy product research, nutrition and health, and dairy confidence.
CDRF is located at 502 Mace Boulevard, Suite 12, Davis, CA, 95616, USA.

To perform its duties, the Consortium is organized into four bodies:

• Management (CDRF)
• Steering Committee (SC)
• Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC)
• IMGC Web Portal Group (PG)
  

Management - The role of the CDRF is to manage and coordinate the Consortium’s programs under the direction of the Steering Committee (SC).  This includes strategy planning and implementation, resource allocation and prioritization (budget and staff), communication, monitoring and reporting, and organizing an annual “International Milk Genomics and Human Health Symposium”.

The management will be composed of the Executive Director of the CDRF, Dr. Joseph O’Donnell and CDRF staff.  The administrative fee will be paid by the Consortium.

Steering Committee (SC) - The Steering Committee (SC) is the highest body of the Consortium.  Its role is to provide leadership and develop a basic framework and working principles for the Consortium.  It decides on all modifications of the general policies and procedures, and advises the SAC on scientific strategy.

The SC will be composed of the Director of the CDRF, one representative from each of the sponsoring members, as voting members, the Scientific Advisory Committee Leader, one representative from regular members, one representative from in-kind members and one representative from Consortium Management, as non-voting members.

There will be an annual meeting held in conjunction with the annual Symposium.  During this meeting, the past year’s activities will be presented by the management to the SC.  Also, priorities, activities and milestones for the coming year will be set, including the next Symposium meeting.  In addition to the annual meeting, the management may communicate the workings of the Consortium via phone, e-mail, and mail and may elicit comments, directive and any other input necessary.
Decisions for future direction will be determined upon review and discussion within the SC and will be determined through voting in which each sponsoring member carries a vote.

Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) -  The role of the SAC is to develop the scientific and technical content and priorities for the Consortium’s programs and to oversee the workings of the Portal Group.  The SAC is assigned the task of prioritizing the workings of the Portal Group by preparing an Action Plan.

The SAC will be composed of the Scientific Advisory Committee Leader, one representative of the Portal Group, and at least five other regular members.  The SAC must have broad and balanced representation from the relevant scientific disciplines (i.e., genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, bioinformatics, etc.).  The members of the SAC will be nominated for two years by the SC.

The SAC will meet a minimum of once per calendar year.  However, the SAC may communicate its workings through phone, e-mail, and mail and may elicit comments, directive and any other input necessary.  The SAC will report the workings of the Portal Group to the Management in a timely manner and will help in preparation of the annual report to the SC. 

IMGC Web Portal Group (PG) - The role of the PG is to plan, develop, and implement the technical details of portal development.  The PG will utilize technologies available in the public domain or in commercial products to assist Consortium members in solving their computational, analytical and data management issues.

The PG will receive direction from the SAC about content to be placed on the Portal, and will provide the SAC and management with feedback about the progress, challenges and opportunities involved.  The PG will be composed of the Technical Manager and Database Content Manager.

Technical Manager’s Key Responsibilities:

• Designs, develops and implements the portal infrastructure and IMGC computing environment. 
• Conducts backups and disaster recovery.
• Completes installation and update of databases and software tools.
• Troubleshoots and fixes technical issues as they arise.
• Educates Consortium members on how to foster the use of the portal and its tools on an as needed basis (i.e., web-based tutorials for the Portal use/navigation).
• Serves as the liaison between Consortium management and the server where the Portal resides.
• Evaluates and implements other strategic alternative platforms for the Portal.
• Assists in content management with integration of various databases with the Portal.
• Provides help in support of grant applications and publications.
  

Database Content Manager’s Key Responsibilities:

• Provides coordination for annotation and curation of datasets for IMGC members.
• Organizes datasets obtained from different sequencing sources into well-annotated databases that are informative and intuitive.
• Determines data mining and curation tools for sequence and functional annotations of proteins, microarray data, expression data, molecular interactions, phenotype data and others.
• Extracts facts from scientific literature.
• Develops curation standards and works with Technical manager to develop editorial workflow process.  This process is lead by the content manager.
• Provides help in support of grant applications and publications.

Membership Levels, Terms and Benefits

Membership levels are based on member contribution, and include three member levels with varying rights and services.  Membership provides a point of entry and a mechanism for industry, academia, research institutions/organizations and government agencies involved in milk genomics to work together on a regular basis with one another worldwide.  Collaboration in the Consortium will be mutually beneficial.  There is a strong value proposition for all members.  Members invest money, time and/or resources in the Consortium in return for a share in the knowledge gained.

Sponsoring Members - This membership is reserved for national and/or multi-national companies, private and/or government research institutes, and international organizations that wish to receive the full benefits of the IMGC.  Sponsoring members will have voting rights on all matters.  Sponsoring membership requires a fee. 

Sponsoring Member Terms: Current sponsorship fee is $25,000 per year and is paid yearly.  Current sponsorship fee shall be sustained until changed.  The sponsorship fee shall be determined by the SC.  Sponsorship shall be based on a calendar year from January 1 to December 31.

• Primary control in defining strategic directions of the Consortium’s programs and working procedures.
• Opportunities to leverage technological capital and experience (i.e., access to data mining tools and experts).
• Early and full access to cutting-edge milk genomics information and knowledge developed by the Consortium prior to public knowledge.
• Access to participation in the analysis, translation and interpretation of datasets.
• Opportunity for co-authorships with others, if they provide their datasets and/or contribute to analysis.
• Develop and commercialize intellectual properties in milk genomics and related delivery technologies by capitalizing on advances generated by the Consortium.
• Opportunities to connect with scientific experts in milk genomics and to build relationships.
• Opportunities to participate in collaborative, multi-center national and international projects.
• Opportunities to be listed as sponsoring member at the Portal directory and Symposium and, if they opt to do so, have their websites and/or e-mails included in the directory.
• Periodic Consortium report updates.

In-Kind Members -This membership is available to organizations willing to provide valuable services and or resources (i.e., time, staff, equipment, funds, promotion tools, IT consultancy, logistics, etc.) to the Consortium’s programs.  In-kind membership will have no voting privileges.  In-kind members will receive all communications sent to regular members and will qualify for all other regular member benefits if they wish to contribute to Portal content.  In-kind members may join the Consortium at any time by notifying Management of their intentions in writing. 

In-Kind Member Terms: This membership is non-fee based and will have no voting privileges. In-kind membership shall be based on a calendar year from January 1 to December 31.

• Opportunities to connect with scientific experts in milk genomics and to build relationships.
• Opportunities to participate in collaborative, multi-center national and international projects.
• Opportunities to be listed as in-kind members at the Portal directory and Symposium and, if they opt to do so, have their websites and/or e-mails included in the directory.
• Closer interaction with the research-end users of milk genomics knowledge.
• Periodic Consortium report updates.