Off to Germany

I am heading to Freiburg, Germany on Saturday for The Physcomitrella Genome Workshop. (Freiburg is located in the southwestern corner of Germany, close to the borders of France and Switzerland.) The moss Physcomitrella patens is the first bryophyte to have its entire genome sequenced. Basically it is the human genome project for mosses. Here you can check out the official publication of this research that appeared in Science this past December. At the workshop we will be learning how to use the genome databases and how best we can take advantage of this great resource.

It is going to be quite the whirl-wind trip but I am hoping that we will have a chance to see some of the local mosses. I think that it would be great to get outside and visit the Black Forest which surrounds the city. From the pictures that I have seen the mountains look beautiful. Unfortunately the weather prediction has it raining the entire time that we are there. I am crossing my fingers that they are wrong.

I am not taking my computer and with the schedule they have for us on posting on the moss blog will probably not fit in. I will have an update on how it all went when I return.

Auf Wiedersehen!