Program for Conservation Genomics

Enabling the use of genomics in conservation management

The remaining major barriers to applying genomic tools in conservation management lie in the complexity of designing and analyzing genomic experiments. This is where the Stanford Program for Conservation Genomics (PCG) steps in!

Conservationists have generated incredibly detailed and comprehensive data on many wild populations of a wide variety of species. These datasets have the potential to be extremely informative for academic questions about the evolution of genomes, adaptation and natural selection in wild, mapping genotype to phenotype, mutational load, inbreeding, gene flow and migration patterns, and many more fundamental topics in evolutionary biology. By helping conservationists employ genomic tools, we will also generate valuable datasets for developing and evaluating evolutionary and ecological theory.

The goals of this program are to bring together academic researchers at Stanford and conservationists from all over the world to develop and implement genomic tools to aid conservation management. We aim to develop technology and resources to provide immediate and direct assistance to conservationists in the field. We believe that the data we help generate will also be incredibly valuable for the generation and testing of evolutionary hypotheses in diverse and wild populations. We elaborate on the program's goals in the text below:

Application of genomic tools

Work with conservation groups to develop cost effective, easy and transparent genomic tools to monitor and study individuals and populations.
Identify and adapt cutting edge technological advances in genomics for conservation study.
Identify academic partners for collaboration with specific conservation groups.

Grants

Collaborate with conservationists in grant applications — especially by providing expertise and credibility for genomic studies.

Donors

Help create meaningful collaborations between donors, conservationists and academic researchers to solve conservation management problems.

Academic Research

Use the extremely valuable information collected by conservationists to answer fundamental biological questions.

Workshops

Host workshops to educate conservationists about the utility and implementation of genomic tools.
Host workshops to bring academic researchers together to perform comprehensive studies using detailed genomic and life-history data collected by ecologists and conservationists.

Core Projects

Identify core projects to focus and motivate collaborative research.