# Caenorhabditis Genetics Center

> **NIH NIH P40** · UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA · 2021 · $85,647

## Abstract

Project Summary
The objective of the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center (CGC) Resource Component is to promote research on
the small metazoan Caenorhabditis elegans by curating important, genetically characterized nematode stocks
and distributing them upon request to researchers and science educators. The CGC is the sole general stock
center for the curation and distribution of C. elegans. The CGC currently houses nearly 23,000 different strains,
and they are immensely popular: ~30,000 strains are distributed each year and the majority goes to >3,400
user groups in the United States. Researchers in all locales supply us with important strains that they have
generated. If the CGC were not performing this curation and distribution service, strain sharing would be
extremely inefficient and costly; the burden of filling requests would be placed upon individual labs. Moreover,
the conservation of many published strains might be in jeopardy. This would be a great loss, because research
in this model organism has led to fundamental insights into basic biological mechanisms, including
programmed cell death, the discovery of microRNAs, and the mechanism of RNA interference in animals. C.
elegans has also provided insights to mechanisms of cancer progression and other diseases including
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. In addition to enhancing research progress, the CGC offers major cost-savings to
the NIH as a whole, to individual research labs funded by NIH, and to all other labs in the community, through
decreasing redundant labor by making new mutations and mutant combinations readily available. An economy-
of-scale strain distribution approach decreases labor and other costs by relieving individual labs of the
responsibility for disseminating useful strains, and it safeguards strains made with NIH grant support through
curation in redundant sites. The CGC facilitates use of this relatively low-cost model by investigators working
primarily in high-cost models such as mice. The continued constant growth of the Center has necessitated
purchase of additional equipment to support long-term storage and preservation of our growing strain collection
and for enabling work with the rapidly increasing numbers of fluorescently marked strains in the collection.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10406010
- **Project number:** 3P40OD010440-10S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
- **Principal Investigator:** Ann E. Rougvie
- **Activity code:** P40 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $85,647
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2012-09-01 → 2023-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10406010

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10406010, Caenorhabditis Genetics Center (3P40OD010440-10S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10406010. Licensed CC0.

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