U. Nebraska plant researchers get $9M grant

Manipulating plant cells to respond to drought may be in the distant future, but the University of Nebraska will have an opportunity to be a part of that future.

Nebraska's Nano-enhanced Epigenetics Research Group is on the national forefront of a new project. The National Science Foundation awarded a three-year, $9 million grant to EPSCoR, Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.

These grants go to research with the highest potential to improve future research and develop competitiveness, according to the NSF website.

"It's very competitive, and it took the collaboration and participation of a lot of faculty members from three universities of Nebraska as well as a strong support from administrators and business leaders in the state of Nebraska," said Fred Choobineh, director of EPSCoR.

Among University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Nebraska Medical Center and Creighton University, 17 faculty members will interact across disciplines.

"A real key component of this proposal is interdisciplinary activity, bringing faculty together ... and (graduate and post doctoral) students together for training in environments they're not used to," said Sally Mackenzie, a professor and program leader for the Plant Sciences Initiative.

Animal and Nutritional Scientists will provide animal cell data for plant cell comparison.

Meanwhile, plant scientists and biochemists will seek to understand how groups of genes in plant cells coordinate together to function properly as a responsive unit.

Similarly to how people respond when they get cold or hot, plants respond to stimuli, such as drought. Those responses are never shaped by one gene, Mackenzie said.

The role of engineers is to create a nanodevice to pierce the plant cell wall. By injecting molecules, plant scientists could change the control system, Choobineh said.

Although crop field-testing for the technology is not expected in the first three years, UNL is ranked first among universities in U.S. field trial approvals in 2004 and 2005, according to the Nature Biotechnology journal.

"The most important aspect won't be output or research. It really is the student training environment. Not too many students get to be trained as engineers and biologists together," Mackenzie said. "If UNL is really going to be one of the top universities in the country, we have to put out the top people in the country."

Choobineh said this grant is aimed at two more components: Economic development and K-12 promotion of science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM.

Economic development consists of subsidized student internships for Nebraska industry, faculty research collaboration, a sponsored innovation conference for government and connection with industry leaders.

Along with STEM promotion in K-12, summer camps will be available to middle and high school students.

"I think the research and infrastructure are intertwined," Choobineh said. "We are building infrastructure and advancing our research agenda."

(C) 2008 Daily Nebraskan via U-WIRE