Headlines
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| Thomas Baum, Steve Whitham and John Hill survey soybeans outside a growth chamber. |
A Plant Sciences Institute Innovative Grant powered up a project to develop a means for identifying genes to protect soybean plants from disease. That project has won funding from the Iowa Soybean Association, the United Soybean Board, the North Central Soybean Research Program, and now a $2.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Mobile RNAs move research to higher levelsThe success of a Plant Sciences Institute Innovative Grant project investigating how a plant’s RNA machinery transmits information from one part of the plant to another helped two Iowa State scientists secure a $ 0.4 million USDA-NRI grant and a $2.75 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
One-stop croppingAn Innovative Grant from the Plant Sciences Institute helped launch a project for the sustainable production of lignocellulosic feedstocks. These feedstocks will play a large role if the United States is to succeed in producing the 36 billion gallons of domestic biofuel by 2022, mandated by the Energy Independence Security Act of 2007.
Partnering on pyrolysisA project jointly funded by the Plant Sciences Institute and the ConocoPhillips Company will define the most desirable feedstock traits for optimum bio-oil production through fast pyrolysis.
Directors message: Spinning straw into goldIt is always gratifying when small startup projects we have supported turn into larger projects that attract substantial extramural funding. These cases are testimony to the quality of our researchers and are an endorsement of the research that we chose to support in the Institute.
