It is with mixed emotion that we announce the retirement of the Genomics Discovery Initiative.
Over the past 14 years, this community has provided a rich environment for collaboration and learning from one another in the arena of functional genomics screening. Toward our mission of “…accelerating biological and medical discovery” we have made great progress. Collectively we completed an ambitious pilot study, penned the MIARE guidelines, and generated multiple collaborative publications including the Frontiers in RNAi eBook. Through our annual meetings we have learned from one another about best practices and common pitfalls and emerged, not only invigorated with new ideas to apply to our own research, but also with many lasting friendships.
Now our lessons learned from RNAi screening have been applied to CRISPR screening to allow that technology to evolve at a much more rapid pace. It has become clear over the last couple years that the GDI community is not as critical today as it was in the early days of RNAi. Experienced members have been able to pick up knockout screening with relative ease. In this way, it seems our original mission has been accomplished.
While the formal activities of the Initiative have concluded, we welcome further collaboration with you. We encourage you to continue reaching out to the connections you have made with Dharmacon and Horizon Scientists over the years and continue to foster the relationships you have built with other members as well. We will continue to have representation at scientific conferences many of you attend including AACR and ELRIG CRISPR in Drug Discovery 2020. You can find an updated list of events at https://horizondiscovery.com/events. We hope to see you there in the future.
If you have any questions regarding this announcement, please feel free to contact your sales representative or reach out to us directly.
Finally, we would like to thank you for the insights and energy you have brought to the Initiative. Without you, it would not have been so successful.
Horizon Discovery