MASC has its origin in the 1990s and was founded by a group of dedicated Arabidopsis researchers
Today 34 countries are involved in MASC actions and global progress is published in the annual MASC report and documented on this website!
MASC subcommittees coordinate collaborative large-scale projects initiated by MASC members
MASC oversees the organisation of 'The International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR)'History and Purpose
The Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC) has its origin in the 1990s when scientists from the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia formed an ad hoc committee to promote large-scale studies in Arabidopsis thaliana. One of the main aims of the committee was and still is to strengthen international collaboration and coordination, to reduce redundancy and to help in guiding the community in making progress on projects that can be successful only by combined international efforts. This idea of a combined and coordinated effort accompanied by the policy of open data sharing has proven successful and led to the establishment of Arabidopsis thaliana as a reference plant and the Arabidopsis community as being one of the most active research communities. Arabidopsis researchers can look back on more than 40 successful years - having published the first fully sequenced plant genome, functionally annotated most genes, and developed a plethora of techniques, tools and resources. Within the previous 20 years two MASC road maps guided Arabidopsis research: ‘The Multinational Coordinated Arabidopsis thaliana - Genome Research Project’ in the 1990s and ‘The Multinational Coordinated Arabidopsis thaliana Functional Genomics Project’ in the 2000s. The third MASC road map was published in 2012 ‘The Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee - From bench to bountiful harvests’ (Lavagi et al., 2012, Plant Cell, 24:2240-2247). The main aim of the Arabidopsis community stated in the third road map is to obtain in-depth knowledge of how the genome is translated into a continuum of processes, from the single molecule to cells and tissues, the whole plant, plant populations, and fields of plants to be able to build a predictive model of an Arabidopsis plant, which is accompanied by the development of big data management systems. Additionally, Arabidopsis researchers have put increased effort into outreach to other plant communities and into translational approaches to allow effective exchange of information.
Composition and Responsibilities
The Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC) is composed of representatives from each country with major efforts in Arabidopsis research or coalition of countries with smaller programs. It is open to any country interested in participating. Selection of MASC representatives is left to the discretion of each country. The MASC meets once a year in conjunction with the International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR). Rotating MASC chairs and co-chairs are selected from the MASC membership, including country representatives and subcommittee members. Specific responsibilities of the MASC are:
- To coordinate programmatic aspects of the Arabidopsis research world-wide.
- To facilitate open communication and free exchange of data, materials and ideas among the Arabidopsis research community.
- To monitor and summarize progress of scientific activities of participating laboratories.
- To identify needs and opportunities of the Arabidopsis research community and communicate them to funding agencies of participating nations.
- To periodically update and adjust the course of the project
MASC structure
Below you can find the overview of the MASC and its members. By clicking on the green buttons you will find more information about the MASC subcommittees, the MASC countries and the Arabidopsis community projects and resources.
MASC Board of Directors
Rodrigo A. Gutiérrez (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Elizabeth Haswell (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Yuling Jiao (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Masatomo Kobayashi (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Sean May(This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Blake Meyers (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Shahid Mukhtar (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Xuelu Wang (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Nicholas Provart, University of Toronto, Canada
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(Chair)
Sébastien Aubourg, INRA, Evry, France
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Sean May, University of Nottingham, UK
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Klaus Mayer, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany
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Yasukazu Nakamura, Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Japan
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Yves Van Den Peer, VIB / Ghent University, Belgium
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Christopher Town, J. Craig Venter Institute, US
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Tetsuro Toyoda, RIKEN BASE, Japan
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Motoaki Seki, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS), Japan This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(chair)
Joe Ecker The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, US
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(co-chair)
Pascal Braun, Technische Universität München, Germany
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Ian Small, ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, Australia
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Satoshi Iuchi, RIKEN Bioresource Center, Japan
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Debbie Crist, ABRC, Ohio State University
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Robert Schmitz, University of Georgia, US (co-chair) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Xuehua Zhong, University of Wisconsin, US (co-chair) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Xiaofeng Cao, Chinese Academy of Sciences, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Claudia Kohler, Uppsala Centre for Plant Science, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Roger Deal, Emory University, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Yijun Qi, National Institute of Biological Sciences, Bejing
Kazuki Saitov, RIKEN / Chiba University, Japan
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(Chair)
Wolfram Weckwerth, University of Vienna; Austria
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(Co-chair)
Mike Beale, Rothamsted Research, UK
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Alisdair Fernie, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Germany
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Oliver Fiehn, University of California, US
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Tony Larson, University of York, UK
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Rob Last, Michigan State University, US
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Basil Nikolau, Iowa State University, US
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J. Chris Pires, University of Missouri, US
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(Chair)
Brian P. Dilkes, Purdue University, US
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(Co-chair)
Justin Borevitz, Australian National University, Australia
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Graham King, Southern Cross University, Australia
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Dan Kliebenstein, University of California-Davis, US
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Marcus A. Koch, University of Heidelberg, Germany
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Nicholas Provart, University of Toronto, Canada This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
M. Eric Schranz, Wageningen University, Netherlands
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Detlef Weigel, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Yalong Guo Chinese Academy of Sciences, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Fabio Fiorani, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
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(Chair)
Christine Granier, INRA-SUPAGRO, France
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Justin Borevitz, Australian National University, Australia This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Stijn Dhondt, VIB, Gent, Belgium This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
John Doonan, Aberystwyth University, UK
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Joe Ecker, Salk Institute, US
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Joshua Heazlewood, University of Melbourne
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(Chair)
Katja Bärenfaller, Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
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Sacha Baginsky, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle- Wittenberg, Germany This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..de
Hans-Peter Braun, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Steve Briggs, University of California, US
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Geert De Jaeger, VIB Ghent University, Belgium
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Harvey Millar, The University of Western Australia, Australia
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Hans-Peter Mock, Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Germany This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hirofumi Nakagami, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Japan This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Scott Peck, University of Missouri, US
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Loïc Rajjou, AgroParisTech, France
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Sigrun Reumann, University of Stavanger, Norway
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Norbert Rolland, CEA, Grenoble, France
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Véronique Santoni, INRA, France
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Waltraud Schulze, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Nicolas Taylor, The University of Western Australia, Australia
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Jay Thelen, University of Missouri, US
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Klaas van Wijk, Cornell University, USA
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Wolfram Weckwerth, University of Vienna, Austria
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Julian Whitelegge, University of California, US
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Stefanie Wienkoop, University of Vienna, Austria
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Siobhan Brady, (Co-chair), University of California, US This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Malcolm Bennett, (Co-chair), University of Nottingham, UK This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Leah Band, University of Nottingham, UK
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Pascal Falter-Braun, Technische Universität München, Germany
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Rodrigo A. Gutiérrez, P. Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile
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Gabriel Krouk, CNRS, France
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Nicola Patron, Earlham Institute, UK
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Canada
Dario Bonetta, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
United States
Joanna Friesner, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
North American Arabidopsis Steering
Committee (NAASC)
Australia
Monica Murcha, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
China
Yuling Jiao, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
India
Jitendra P. Khurana, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Ramamurthy Srinivasan, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Israel
Sigal Savaldi-Goldstein, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Japan
Motoaki Seki, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource
Science)
Masatomo Kobayashi This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. RIKEN
BioResource Research Center
New Zealand
Lynette Brownfield, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
South Korea
Inhwan Hwang, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Argentina
Marcelo J. Yanovsky, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Brazil
Wagner Araújo, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Adriano Nunes-Nesi, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Chile
María Francisca Blanco, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Austria
Marie-Theres Hauser, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Belgium
Moritz K. Nowack, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Czech Republic
Viktor Žárský, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Denmark
Michael Broberg Palmgren, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Finland
Michael Wrzaczek, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
France
Catherine Perrot-Rechenmann, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Loïc Lepiniec, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Germany
Klaus Harter, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Greece
Polydefkis Hatzopoulos, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hungary
László Szabados, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Ireland
Charles Spillane, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Italy
Maura Cardarelli, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Netherlands
Sacco de Vries, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Norway
Thorstan Hamann, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Spain
José Luis Micol Molina, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sweden
Maria Eriksson, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Switzerland
Kentaro K. Shimizu, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
United Kingdom
Geraint Parry, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Blake Meyers
Masatomo Kobayashi