Research laboratories

URGI is a research unit in genomics and bioinformatics, dedicated to plants and crop parasites. The URGI research activity covers data integration as well as genome structure and dynamics. URGI hosts a bioinformatics platform , which belongs to the Institut Français de Bioinformatique.
The research goal at URGI is to acquire a better understanding of genome structure, evolution and functioning to help researchers to interpret their data.

A focus is made on transposable elements and repeats that appear today to be very pertinent to understand genome evolution and its functioning. Indeed, they play a major role to explain genome size and structure. Transposable elements, viewed for a long time as intra-genomic parasites, are also considered, today, to be at the origin of many essential biological functions such as the immune system, the centromeres, the heterochromatin or the telomerases. Knowledge and data gained are added to the information system increasing the value of deposited data.