The Genomic Open-Source Breeding Informatics Initiative (GOBII) - a Gates Foundation Initiative to Transform Breeding through the Use of Genomic Selection.

The Genomic and Open-Source Breeding Informatics Initiative (GOBII) is a Bill and Melinda Gates funded project with the mission to implement genomic and marker assisted selection as part of routine breeding programs for staple crops in the developing world. We believe that much of the gains that have been achieved by major ag-biotech companies can also be achieved in developing countries through the adoption of data management systems and bioinformatics pipelines that aid breeding decisions. Cornell University and the Boyce Thompson Institute in Ithaca, NY are partnering with agricultural research centers in Mexico, India and the Philippines to make these data management and genomic selection pipelines available to everyone. The first step in this process has been to develop a genomic database management system that is highly searchable and flexible enough to be used across different crops profiled with diverse marker and sequence-based platforms. The source-code for this system is available at: https://github.com/gobiiproject. We are now working to connect information across adjacent data management systems using breeding specific APIs (BrAPIs: http://docs.brapi.apiary.io) so that breeders will be able to access data from a single entry point. In addition, we are helping to drive a change in breeding practices by coordinating use-cases for genomic selection, connecting existing analysis pipelines, and developing new analysis tools where gaps exist. Our goal is to help breeders in the developing world increase the rates of genetic gain over time through adoption of genomic selection techniques.