Grants Add Power to Research Initiatives
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| Thomas Harrington says his plan to genetically fingerprint soybean rust varieties will help to track fungal populations during disease outbreaks. His project received a Plant Sciences Institute grant for innovative research. |
Seven Plant Sciences Institute grants will add power to its ongoing research initiatives.
Innovative Grants Program is designed to engage more faculty, staff and student scientists, said Stephen Howell, the institute's director. Some also will add new dimensions to the institute's research initiatives: genomics, biopharmaceuticals, nutrition, biorenewables and crop protection.
"The grants will enhance what we're able to do in our initiatives," Howell said. "The grants had to be for innovative projects. They can't be for research as usual." The seven awards, chosen from 18 proposals, will total $384,363 over two years.
One project seeks ways to track soybean rust – a matter of great concern to Iowa soybean growers. The fungus, which could strike Iowa this summer, can cut soybean yields by up to 80 percent.
Thomas Harrington, professor of plant pathology and natural resource ecology and management, will use "genetic fingerprinting" to identify rust strains.
"What we hope to do is genetically track these populations," Harrington said. "When it arrives here in Iowa, we can pinpoint where it came from." The genetic markers also will help scientists learn how strains differ so they can develop resistant soybeans.
The grant, tied to the crop protection initiative, complements rust-soybean interaction research conducted by plant pathology professors Thomas Baum and Steve Whitham.
Baum, leader of the crop protection initiative, said Harrington's project is promising. "It will be a practical tool for people dealing with managing the disease, but also a nice tool for research," he added.
A second grant project, to test the dietary effects of a slow-release starch, adds a strong component to the nutrition initiative. Co-investigators Martha James, adjunct associate professor of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, and Alan Myers, professor and chairman of the same department, found the starch, called long-chain amylopectin starch or LCAPS.
James and Myers believe LCAPS may be more resistant to our body's digestive enzymes, so it could release glucose slowly or pass into the large intestine undigested.
The researchers believe LCAPS could help prevent obesity by cutting calories available to the body. The starch also could lower the glycemic index – a measure of how much glucose is digested over time, said co-investigator Paul Flakoll, a professor of food science and human nutrition of and animal science. A low-glycemic index diet has been found to cut the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
The researchers will feed LCAPS noodles to humans and test whether the rates of glucose release are reduced.
The grant creates "a totally new collaboration," said Flakoll, co-leader of the nutrition initiative. "It's not something we're used to doing together. We're tying plant biochemistry and molecular biology with something that happens in humans." The grant also will help develop additional slow-release starches.
Charles Brummer, associate professor of agronomy, will join forces with the plant genomics initiative. His grant will bring genomics tools to bear on improving alfalfa, an animal feed and a potential feedstock for bioenergy and industrial products.
Brummer has mostly used conventional plant breeding to develop qualities such as winter hardiness and late-season production in alfalfa. The grant will let him identify alfalfa genes contributing to heterosis – the quality that makes hybrid plants more productive than their parents. Brummer will use an alfalfa GeneChip, capable of testing for the expression of about 60,000 genes, to compare hybrids producing heterosis with plants that don't show heterosis.
"There's no doubt yield is very complex and every plant has different genes," Brummer said. "We'll only be able to identify some of the genes involved in some germplasm."
Agronomy professor Pat Schnable, leader of the genomics initiative, said Brummer's proposal has implications for heterosis in hybrid corn. By studying a different species, "We will be able to find additional mechanisms and more fully understand this complex process," he added.
