Purdue genome resoearch gets $1.6 million boost
By Susan A. Steeves
Purdue University research in comparative plant genomics has received
a five-year $1.6 million National Science Foundation grant that will
allow scientists to advance knowledge of important food crops.
The Young Investigator Award goes to Scott Jackson, assistant professor
of agronomy, and Phillip SanMiguel, director of Purdue's Agricultural
Genomics Core Facility, as part of NSF's National Plant Genome Research
Program. The program began in 1998 to encourage work that eventually
will yield ways to improve crop production.
Jackson and SanMiguel employ comparative genetic mapping and comparative
genomics to find ways to improve plants' growth despite various factors
that limit production. The implications of this work extend beyond agriculture,
according to the NSF. Because plant and human genomes are similar, the
information could have significant impact in human medicine.
"We are using the rice genome, which has been completely mapped,
to find specific DNA segments, then we compare it to the DNA in other
plants," Jackson says. "This aids in studying other plants'
genomes that haven't been fully sequenced."
Jackson and SanMiguel use genetic maps, which show the order of genes,
but not the physical distance between them, and physical maps, which
show the location of a sequence on a chromosome. This information allows
scientists to locate genes so they can gain an understanding of how
they function in plants.
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