PRGC - Outreach - 2002-2003

Consortium Coordinator - Dr. Henry T. Nguyen
Division of Plant Sciences - University of Missouri
1-31 Agriculture Building
Columbia, MO 65211, USA
E-mail | Tel : 573-882-5494 | Fax : 573-882-1469

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PRGC - Outreach - 2002-2003

Outreach June 2002 to June 2003

Invited presentations

Schachtman, D. "Engineering zinc uptake in cereal root and whole plants", Horticulture Department, Purdue University. September 2002
Schachtman, D. Agricultural Plant Stress II APSRC Symposium, Chonnam National University, Kwangju, South Korea, October 2002
Sharp RE. "Interaction with ethylene: changing views on the role of ABA in root and shoot growth regulation." Harvard Forest Workshop on Long Distance Transport Processes in Plants, Harvard University, October 2002
Sharp RE. " Mechanisms of root growth maintenance during water deficits." BASF Inc., Raleigh-Durham, NC, October 2002
Sharp RE, HJ Bohnert, GL Davis, GK Springer, DP Schachtman , J Gross, Y Wu, and HT Nguyen. "Root growth maintenance during water deficits: Physiology to Functional Genomics". Plant and Animal Genome XI Conference, San Diego, January 2003
Sharp RE, ME LeNoble, and I-J Cho. "Maintenance of root and shoot growth by ABA: The role of ethylene suppression". Society for Experimental Biology symposium on Crosstalk in Plant Signal Transduction, University of Southampton, UK, April 2003
Davis, G. "Rice-maize synteny: Implications for functional genomics." Rice Genome Meeting, February 2003, Tsukuba, Japan
Nguyen, H.T. Genetic mapping and functional genomics of drought tolerance. Seoul National University, May 2003, South Korea.
Nguyen, H.T. Plant stress genomics. National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology. Rural Development Administration, May 2003, Suwon, South Korea.

Community outreach

Dr. Schachtman is a member of the Emerging Leadership Council (ELC) of the Saint Louis Science Center.
Dr. Schachtman is the educational coordinator for ELC and participant in Family Math and Science program. The family math program is an after school enrichment program in St. Louis public schools which have a very high minority enrollment. The program brings math and science to these minority families.
Dr. Schachtman gave an April 2003 scientific presentation to general public at the Saint Louis Science Center entitled "Plant Biotechnology"
Dr. Bohnert is working with Dr. Carolyn Zanta - UIUC Outreach coordinator [UIUC-Hughes Biotechnology Education and Outreach Program (www.life.uiuc.edu/hughes/footlocker)] on setting up experiments for HS teachers. They include mutant screening (Arabidopsis) and stress experiments coupled to RT-PCR analyses of "easy transcripts".
Drs. Davis, Nguyen and Sharp participated in the PGI@ MU undergraduate internship program.
Dr. Davis had a meeting March 17 and follow-up communication with the National Corn Growers Association.
Dr. Davis hosted a RET teacher last summer in her lab.
Dr. Davis has had undergraduate interns from EXPRESS (minority mentoring program for freshman and sophomores), LSUROP (Life Science Undergraduate Research Opportunities), and MURF (Monsanto Undergraduate Research Fellowships) programs in the past year.
Dr. Sharp had an undergraduate intern from the LSUROP program for the 2002-2003 academic year.
Dr. Springer is a member of the Executive Committee, Missouri Education & Research Consortium (MERC). This consortium supports the use of technology in post-secondary and higher education institutions throughout the State of Missouri.
Dr. Bohnert hosted a high-school student in the lab through UIUC-funded in the summer of 2002 (Ms. Ursula Idlewau-Champaign High School) and another student is expected to work with him in 2003.
Dr. Nguyen gave a lecture on the application of genomics and biotechnology to a group of 30 African scientists, who came to the University of Missouri as part of the short course training in biotechnology sponsored by USAID and Michigan State University. May 2003.
Dr. Nguyen interacted extentedly with the Missouri Soybean Association regarding the importance of plant genome research and its application to the genetic improvement of drought tolerance in crops.

Posters

Cho I-J, BC Tan BC, DR McCarty, and RE Sharp. 2002. The vp14 mutant confirms that ABA maintains root growth under water deficits. First Annual Midwest Rhizosphere Research Symposium, Danforth Plant Science Center, St Louis.
Maltman RC, DR McCarty, and RE Sharp. 2003. Does the hormone abscisic acid maintain or inhibit plant growth under water deficits? Analysis using NCED knockout mutants of Arabidopsis. University of Missouri-Columbia Undergraduate Research Conference.
Nguyen HT, RE Sharp, HJ Bohnert, GL Davis, GK Springer, DP Schachtman, J Gross, and Y Wu. 2003 Functional genomics of root growth and root signaling under drought. Missouri Life Science Week. March 2003. The poster remains on line for the whole year.
Nguyen HT, RE Sharp, HJ Bohnert, GL Davis, GK Springer, DP Schachtman, J Gross, and Y Wu. 2003. Functional genomics of root growth and root signaling under drought. Challenges and Propects of Agricultural Genomics II. June 2003 Seoul, South Korea.
R Dierking, J Soto, E Guenther and G Davis. 2003. Comparison of cell wall proteins in drought tolerant and susceptible maize lines Maize Genetic Conference.
M Gerau, T Musket, R Dierking, M Kea, J Cordia, P Weston, and G Davis. 2003. Identification of QTL Responsible for Root Architecture Maize Genetic Conference.
GK Springer and GK Allen, 2003.UMBC, A Life Science Resource at UM, Missouri Life Science Week.
GK Springer, JE Ries, A Guillen, and WG Spollen. 2003. A High Volume EST Pipeline for Discovery, Missouri Life Science Week.
PC Bradshaw, GK Springer, SL Young, 2003. Endomebase: A Model Cross-Species Tissue-Specific Gene and Protein Expression Database, Missouri Life Science Week.
JE Ries, TB Patrick, and GK Springer,. 2003. Optimized Work Graphs for Genomics Information Retrieval, Missouri Life Science Week.
WG Spollen and GK Springer. 2003. Seq2GO: A Tool for Mapping Sequences to GO Terms, Missouri Life Science Week.
A Guillen and GK Springer. 2003. Alternative Mechanism for User Authentication on the Web, Missouri Life Science Week.
KM Whitworth, JA Green, JE Ries, GK Springer, A Guillen, JL Forrester, N Mathialagan, BA Didion, MC Lucy, and RS Prather. 2003. Characterization of cDNA Libraries Developed from Porcine Oocytes and Embryos: Identification of Differentially Expressed Genes, Missouri Life Science Week.
Maltman RC, DR McCarty, and RE Sharp. 2003. Does the hormone abscisic acid maintain or inhibit plant growth under water deficits? Analysis using NCED knockout mutants of Arabidopsis. Current Topics in Plant Biochemistry, Physiology, and Molecular Biology. 21st Annual Missouri Symposium.
Cho, I-J, M Sivarguru, and RE Sharp. 2003. ABA accumulation prevents high levels of reactive oxygen species in the growth zone of maize roots under water deficits. Current Topics in Plant Biochemistry, Physiology, and Molecular Biology. 21st Annual Missouri Symposium.

Lab tours and guest lectures

Dr. Sharp hosted a lab tour for Plant Science 10 (Plant Science Orientation), October 2002
Dr. Sharp gave a guest lecture and lab tour for Plant Science 315 (Crop Physiology), April 2003
Drs. Nguyen and Davis hosted Senator Christopher Bond and Members of the Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council for a lab open house and dedication, November 2003
Dr. Nguyen hosted a lab tour of 15 Farm Managers, March 2003.
Dr. Nguyen hosted the barley improvement program director from ICARDA (Dr. Salvatore Ceccarelli), The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, located in Aleppo, Syria. May 2003.
Dr. Davis toured 25 visitors and seminar speakers through the lab at different times.
Dr. Davis hosted director of R & D for Sigma Chemical Company.
Dr. Davis met with Dr. Oscar Heredia-Diaz, corn breeder Monsanto Corporation working on stress response.
Dr. Davis toured a FIG (freshman interest group) of 8-10 women interested in science.
Dr. Davis guest lectured to the undergraduate summer internship program.
Dr. Gross conducted demonstrations of the Mass Spectrometry and Bioseparations Facility at the Donald Danforth Plant Sciences Center on a regular basis to the general public and high school students in particular.

Other coverage of project

The following article selected several studies, including our NSF project, from among the presentations at the Plant and Animal Genome XI Conference, San Diego, Jan 2003, to illustrate current uses of microarrays in plant physiology:
Wullschleger SD, Difazio SP (2003) Emerging use of gene expression microarrays in plant physiology. Comparative and Functional Genomics 4: 216-224
The root genomics project was featured by the University of Missouri Alumni Association on January 31, 2003 (http://atmizzou.missouri.edu/jan03/droughttolerance.htm)
Dr. Nguyen was interviewed by Karen McGee from the Radio News Service at the University of Missouri in February, 2003 and four other radio stations in Missouri.
Dr. Nguyen and the root genomics project were featured in the Illumination, a research, scholarship and creative achievement magazine at the University of Missouri. Spring 2003 issue.
Dr. Nguyen and the root genomics project were featured in the Farm Progress magazine in January 2003.

Workshops

Dr. Davis hosted a cDNA microarray workshop in her lab. Although the workshop was not paid for by this grant, both Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Davis were involved in organizing it. There were 24 participants from across the MU campus who conducted a hands on experiment. In addition there were two lectures open to the public with more than 100 people attending them.
Dr. Gross co-organized a symposium entitled "Mass spectrometry in protein science: Proteomics, imaging, and high order structure" held at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in November of 2002. More than 150 scientists attended the 2-day symposium.