Joint Experimental Molecular Unit (JEMU)

About JEMU

Thu, 02/11/2010 - 09:07 — gsonet

RMCA RBINS

The Joint Experimental Molecular Unit (JEMU) is an integrated research infrastructure supported by the Royal Belgian Insitute of Natural Sciences (RBINS, Brussels) and the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA,
Tervuren) aimed at supporting scientific exploitation of natural
history collections in the fields of DNA barcoding, phylogeny
reconstruction and archiving biological specimens. This initiative is
funded by the Belgian Science Policy

Pilot projects: overview

Scratchpad7

Since the first of January 2008, a total of 15 pilot projects have been
accepted. 3 are completed; 7 are close to be completed; 2 are paused
and 3 were accepted recently and began in Januray 2010.

For a more complete description of all the projects, please click on this link:

http://jemu.myspecies.info/content/project_description

For a brief overview of all the projects, please click on this link:

Objectives

Thu, 02/11/2010 - 11:11 — gsonet

Projects

JEMU is devoted to developing,
conducting and supporting research activities related to the
experimental use, maintenance and scientific exploitation of the
natural history collections in RMCA and RBINS.

A
number of molecular methods are currently available to address
questions related to the daily work of scientists in natural history
collections. This can, for example, concern evolutionary, taxonomic or
biogeographic issues. The goal of JEMU is to make these molecular
techniques available to researchers from both institures to complement
ongoing research projects or to initiate/prepare new projects that
fully exploit the possibilities of these molecular techniques.

In this regard, JEMU is developping a DNA barcode task force; an experimental center for DNA analysis of archival specimens and More...

BC42W flagship project (Barcoding for two wings)

Objectives: - The JEMU-flagship project is proposed to expand, to reinforce and to underpin ongoing research programmes on dipteran taxonomy and morphology by a DNA barcoding component. As such the project would join current collaborative dipteran research programmes in which both RMCA and RBINS are involved either for their taxonomic expertise, or for their research facilities and reference collections. This project will provide added value to all of these projects by approaching specific problems within the field of molecular diagnostics and DNA barcoding.