Grants for Plants
Support from Center Friends helps keep the Danforth Center running, but Danforth Center scientists must support their research and their laboratories with scientific grants. The following list of recent grants indicates their success in securing funds from a variety of sources for a collection of cutting edge projects in a competitive intellectual and financial environment.
Grants awarded August – December 2007
Dr. Brad
Barbazuk secured a grant from the USDA to develop a computer
program that will identify potential gene targets in the tomato gene
sequence. Dr. Ed
Cahoon received funding from Abbott Labs for a project
investigating the expression of poly-unsaturated fatty acid related
enzymes in plants. Poly-unsaturated fatty acids are involved in multiple
aspects of human health, development, and nutrition, and targeting
enzyme expression in plants could provide a source of improved nutrition
for humans. The USDA approved
funding for Dr. Claude Fauquet to develop a
microarray-based diagnostic system for identifying plant viruses.
The Monsanto
Company is supporting work by Dr. Mark Running on an
important plant hormone response system that modulates seed germination,
plant growth, and stress responses. Dr. Daniel
Schachtman secured funding from the National Science Foundation
for a project using genetic and physiological approaches to investigate
the impact of fungal infections on root metabolism and nutrient
acquisition.
A grant from
the Monsanto Company will support work in the lab of Dr. Liming
Xiong on the regulation of nitrate uptake and nitrogen
assimilation in plant development.Earlier Grants: from the September 2007 issue of "On the Vine"
Grants awarded January – July 2007
The Howard G.
Buffett Foundation made a generous grant to support research
enhancing the nutritional value and virus resistance of sweet potato for
Africa conducted by Drs. Roger Beachy, Tom Smith, and Tahzeeba Hossain. Bayer Crop Science
made an award to Dr. Jan Jaworski for research studying the accumulation
of chemical targets derived from plant oils that may have industrial
applications.
The Gates
Foundation is continuing support for work in Dr. Ed Cahoon’s lab
on increasing the nutritional value of
cassava. In particular, Dr. Cahoon and colleagues are working to achieve
a ten-fold enhancement of vitamin E and provitamin A (beta-carotene)
content in cassava roots. Dr. Joe Jez
secured
funds from the American Society of Plant Biology for its Summer
Undergraduate Research Fellowship program to support a summer intern.
The National
Academy of Sciences made a grant, through funds from USAID (an office of
the U.S. State Department) to Dr. Daniel Schachtman for work on
drought-related genes in wheat in collaboration with a research group in
Pakistan. Dr. Schachtman also was awarded a collaborative grant with
scientists at the Weizmann Institute from the Lubin Family Foundation to
study drought tolerance in crop plants. Dr. Christopher
Taylor was awarded two grants from the USDA. One grant supports
collaborative work with Washington State University on the control of
plant parasitic nematodes. The other supports joint research with
researchers at Virginia Tech on soybean pathogen interactions with plant
roots. Funding was also received from the United Soybean Board for a
project investigating biotechnology applications for controlling the
soybean cyst nematode. Additional funding from the Illinois-Missouri
Biotechnology Alliance will support the generation of soybean plants resistant
to soybean cyst nematodes.
Questions? Comments?
Thoughts? Ideas?
email us:
onthevine@danforthcenter.org
