NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced the award of major funding to Rutgers researchers working in plant genetics.
Dr. Eric Lam, a professor of plant science in the Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment at Rutgers' Cook College, is principal investigator on a project funded by a five-year NSF grant of approximately $4.3 million. Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island will also be involved.
Dr. Joachim Messing, director of Rutgers' Waksman Institute of Microbiology, is co-principal investigator on a major NSF-funded project managed by the University of Florida. Messing will receive about $1.2 million over five years to support the portion of the work to be conducted at Rutgers.
"NSF's funding of Rutgers' plant genetics research recognizes our prominence among public research universities, the high level of our scientific expertise and the caliber of our investigators," said Rutgers President Francis L. Lawrence. "The work that will be carried out at Cook College and at the Waksman Institute through this new NSF support will have profound implications for our understanding of plant genes, including those from economically important crops such as corn, wheat and rice, upon which the world depends."
The Rutgers awards are part of an NSF initiative to encourage plant biology research through 16 new grants totaling more than $48 million over the next five years. "This year's awards continue to add new and exciting dimensions to the field of plant genome research," said Mary Clutter, NSF assistant director for biological sciences. "The focus has been on functional genomics research designed to understand, at the whole genome scale, the functions of plant genes involved in fundamental processes. I am confident that the new awards, along with the past awards, will make the progress needed to meet the goals of the National Plant Genome Initiative, of which this NSF program is a part."
The way in which vast amounts of DNA are packaged and organized within the plant nucleus is unknown. In pursuit of this knowledge, Lam and his colleagues will work on characterizing and charting the sequences for all the chromosomes of Arabidopsis, a small plant in the mustard family being used worldwide as a model organism for basic and applied research in plant biology.
"Our goal in this project is to contribute to the general understanding of the DNA by charting the relative physical position and movement of sequences for each of the chromosomes in cells of living plants," said Lam. "We hope to provide the first comprehensive 3-D physical and transcription activity maps for a genome and contribute significantly to understanding the roles that gene location may play in controlling gene expression."
Messing, collaborating with investigators in Florida, Arizona and Iowa, will work on maize (or corn) endosperm and the development of tools that will allow scientists to begin to define the functions of many of the genes. Endosperm, the starchy part of maize kernels, is an important food source and also serves as a good basic model for organ development in plants.
"The goal of this project is comprehensive genetic dissection of the molecular mechanisms underlying endosperm development and metabolism," said Messing. "Analysis of mutations that disrupt the endosperm will allow us to identify genes that control development. Molecular analysis of such mutants will in turn lead to other genes that function in the same or interacting pathways."
In October 1999, Messing received another NSF Plant Genome Research Program award for approximately $3.5 million over four years. It supports his research as principal investigator on a maize and sorghum DNA study with colleagues from Purdue University. Professor Hugo Dooner, another Waksman Institute researcher, also has an NSF Plant Genome Research Program grant from October 1998 for more than $1.3 million over three years supporting his maize genome research.
For more information on other projects funded under this NSF initiative, see: http://www.nsf.g ov/bio/pubs/awards/genome00.htm .
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional information on the Rutgers research, contact Eric Lam at (732) 932-8165, extension 220, or lam@aesop.rutgers.edu and Joachim Messing at (732) 445-4257 or messing@mbcl.rutgers.edu .
For more NSF information, contact Cheryl Dybas at (703) 292-8070 or cdybas@nsf.gov . NSF program contacts are Jane Silverthorne at (703) 292-8470 or jsilvert@nsf.gov and Chris Cullis at (703) 292-8470 or ccullis@nsf.gov .