An important consideration to address at the outset was cooperation between industry and academia, find more information and how to best structure activities of mutual benefit. The 1st IFMW had an international focus, and a central theme of this workshop was to identify solutions for a principle limitation of conventional functional metagenomics. Metagenomic libraries, which are difficult to construct, are typically project-specific and maintained in isolation. Each group has its own collection of libraries, and sharing between different research groups is limited. Importantly, a functional metagenomic library sharing model, ��open resource metagenomics��, was presented for adoption by the community [1].

The overall focus of the workshop on functional metagenomics was distinguished from the broader metagenomics discipline, which more commonly centers on next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics, and is supported by networks such as Terragenome and the Earth Microbiome Project. The talks on both workshop days were divided into thematic sessions. Workshop speakers covered important issues within the scope of each session topic and generated ideas for the open discussions that followed. Several workshop attendees were involved in moderating open group discussions on both days so participation by attendees was high. Day 1 Session I. Introduction to functional metagenomics Trevor Charles (University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada) opened the workshop by welcoming participants and presenting an overview of the planned sessions and goals: bringing people together, strengthening relationships, identifying challenges and solutions, discussing implementation of a system to share libraries and set up collaborative opportunities.

Eight topical sessions were designed around the same basic questions for each: What are the major challenges? How are these challenges being addressed? What improvements are necessary? Can we collaborate to do this better? The next speaker of the day was Klaus Fiebig (Ontario Genomics Institute; OGI; Toronto, ON, Canada), who described Genome Canada funding opportunities related to metagenomics. Klaus emphasized that government funding is strongly focused on applied research. He outlined how Genome Canada funding opportunities work as ��matching�� programs: the government provides half of the funds, matched by another partner that provides either cash or in-kind contributions.

Fergal O��Gara (University of Cork, Cork, Ireland) added that discussions regarding basic versus applied research are ongoing in Europe as well. He was critical of the applied nature of funding for metagenomics, stating that this is still a young field and much basic groundwork is still required; metagenomics may not have yet approached the point of applied research. His sentiments were Entinostat echoed by several of the other workshop attendees.