News Archive
A MDA (Muscular Dystrophy Association) sponsored post-doctoral position is available in the Department of Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, starting on August 1st 2008.
The researcher will work in the field of mitochondria biogenesis and study the assembly process of c-type cytochromes, a class of hemoproteins with covalent attachment of the heme co-factor to a CXXCH motif on the apocytochrome. Cytochromes c are versatile molecules that function in electron transfer reactions but also in signaling the death pathways. Their assembly process is not understood and in humans mutations in the only known cytochrome c assembly factor cause a neurodevelopmental disease with cardiomyopathic manifestations.
The future hire will use yeast as an experimental system and focus on 1) elucidating the biochemical activity of Cyc2p a novel mitochondrial flavoprotein that controls a yet-to-be-defined redox step in the heme attachment reaction to apocytochrome and 2) identifying additional mammalian cytochrome-c assembly factors. Because we suspect a role of Cyc2p in thiol-based chemistry, the researcher will also take part in on-going genetic experiments to 3) further dissect the pathway(s) that operate in intermembrane thiol-based redox chemistry. Thiol-based chemistry in the mitochondrial intermembrane space is a recent and novel development in the field since the discovery of catalysts that promote disulfide bond formation. Molecular genetics and biochemical approaches will be used to answer the scientific questions we are interested in. Interested candidates should send a cover letter, resume, and a list of three referees to Dr. Patrice Hamel at hamel.16@osu.edu. Use Post-doctoral Position in the subject line. For additional information, see also Dr. Hamel's Web Site
Erich Grotewold Receives Grant from US-Israeli Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund
We are pleased to announce that Erich Grotewold has been awarded another new grant. This is a 3-year award from the US-Israeli Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund. It is in the amount of $137,000 and is entitled "Regulation of tomato fruit development by interacting MYB proteins."
Erich Grotewold Receives DOE And NSF Grants
Erich Grotewold has been awarded 3-year grant in the amount o $449,390 from the DOE, entitled "Engineering phenolic metabolism in the grasses using transcription factors."
Erich has also been awarded a second, major grant from NSF (Plant Genome). It is a 3-year award in the amount of $2,479,632 entitled "The Grass Regulome Initiative: Integrating control of gene expression and agronomic traits across the grasses."
31 August 2007David Somers' Lab Published In Nature
David Somers’ group is publishing an article in Nature (currently already available on the Web) entitled, “ZEITLUPE is a circadian photoreceptor stabilized by GIGANTEA in blue light.” Woe-Yun Kim and Sumire Fujiwara are co-first authors.
24 August 2007Erich Grotewold Awarded USDA Grant
Erich Grotewold has been awarded a grant from the USDA in the amount of $201,025 for a two-year study entitled, “Transposons as gene control elements.”
24 August 2007Rebecca Lamb Receives OPBC Award
Rebecca Lamb has received an award of $57,567 over two years from the OPBC for a study entitled, ”Two Arabidopsis WWE-PARP proteins involved in abiotic stress response and development.”
24 August 2007Iris Meier Awarded National Science Foundation Grant
Iris Meier has received a $557,000 National Science Foundation grant for “Arabidopsis as a new experimental platform to investigate the function of the nuclear pore protein Tpr in SUMOylation and mRNA export.” The project will be the first study to address the function of this protein in a multi-cellular organism on a whole-organism level. It highlights the strength of plant model systems for addressing complex cell-biological questions with relevance for both plant development and general eukaryotic cell biology.
20 May 2007Plant Biotechnology In-Floor Seminar Series Schedule
Follow the link below for a schedule of informal 30-40 min seminars
that will take place at noon on Fridays in room 189 of Rightmire Hall.
Schedule
[pdf]
Press Release: Ultrasound and algae team up to clean mercury from sediments
The program describes the use of ultrasound to release
the toxic heavy metal, mercury, from sediments and its recovery from
solution by transgenic alage engineered to have enhanced mercury-specific
binding capacity. The technology may be used to clean up contaminated
sediments in the Great Lakes.
Click
here to listen to the audio file.
PCMB Will Have an Interim Chair Beginning in July
Dr. Randy Scholl has been appointed to take over as interim chair of the department of Plant Cellular & Molecular Biology beginning in July of this year.
15 May 2006October Plant Cell Cover Features PCMB Researchers
Click here to read the article [pdf]
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October 2005 Plant Cell
17 October 2005
New Honors Course - PCMB H494
Are We Really THAT Different From Plants? Click for course description. [pdf]
12 October 2005Richard Sayre awarded $7.5 million Gates Foundation Grant
Dr. Richard T. Sayre, a plant biologist at Ohio State University, won a $7.5 million grant to develop a better cassava.
Cassava, a starchy root that is the staple food for 250 million people in Africa, Latin America and Asia, has serious drawbacks. It contains cyanide, so it must be pounded and soaked repeatedly to leach the poison out before cooking, and it provides less than a third of the protein a human needs.
Dr. Sayre's team has a plan to genetically redirect the cyanide-making process to make more protein, so the cassava is more nutritious, less toxic and can be stored longer.
"Over the years, we've gotten grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, USAid and private companies," he said. "But the biggest was $1 million. This is the largest program ever to target cassava, and will probably have the largest impact."
28 June 2005Richard Sayre awarded $321K Rockefeller Foundation Grant
9 May 2005Biao Ding awarded $200K SGER Grant
25 January 2005Greg Armstrong awarded $330K NSF Grant
25 January 2005Joan Leonard Receives 2004 CBS Outstanding Staff Award
Joan Leonard, Coordinator of the Biological Sciences Greenhouse and this year’s Outstanding Staff Award winner, doesn’t just water plants we want everyone to know that upfront! Leonard, who has a degree in botany from Miami University and interned at the Chicago Botanic Garden, has been in charge of the greenhouse for 18 years. Her responsibilities are many and varied, from starting thousands of plants from seed each quarter for the 25 30 lab sections that need them for classes, to consulting with faculty researchers, tracking and ordering supplies, and maintaining the facility itself are the lights working? are there leaks anywhere? And then, there are the outreach activities.
Every year, about 2,000 area school children, mostly
K-4, but some junior and high school classes, visit the greenhouses, where they
not only get a great tour, but the opportunity to do a little “hands on” plant
potting for their take home gift. Leonard also hosts Bio Sci Day, Women In
Science Day and Take Your Daughter to Work Day activities, along with community
outreach at the Columbus Zoo, Columbus Museum of Art and Franklin Park Conservatory.
If that were not enough, local garden clubs meet in the greenhouse, OSU art
classes bring their sketch books and even groups from out of town occasionally
wend their way to the top of Garage K on 12th Avenue.
This is a 365 day a year job since plants don’t rest or take holidays. Granted, Leonard has the help of work study students and last year hired a full time assistant, but the work load keeps growing (pun intended)!
Leonard is thrilled with winning the staff award and says that while she certainly appreciates its $1200 stipend, it is the recognition that is really meaningful to her. It is a well deserved award. Leonard’s enthusiasm for her job, can do attitude and willingness to go that extra mile to help out with growing beautiful plants and providing stunning floral arrangements for any and all college functions, is legendary. Clealry, this woman loves her job. But what does she love most, we ask? “The dress code,” she fires back, laughing, pointing to her standard “uniform” of jeans and t shirt.
“I love the diversity every day is something different different classes, different students and faculty that dynamic keeps me going,” she confides and continues, “I’m always looking for something new and fun to grow.” Right now, the something new and fun is an Amorphorphallus titanum, which she is growing fromseed. For those who may not know, this is the famous, or perhaps notorious is the word, plant with the very pungent flower. Leonard says it takes 7 10 years to bloom; she started it two years ago. Do the math we all have a lot to look forward to!
“I also love coming in every day and seeing what’s germinating or flowering,” she says. “Once I was in here on Christmas Day and a Bird of Paradise flower opened up what a great reward for being in here on a holiday! And when I need a little break or therapy, I just walk down the hall and do some weeding and I get paid for it.”
One of Leonard’s side jobs is caring for plants that come her way that have been confiscated by port authority officials. The greenhouse facility is an officially designated USDA Plant Rescue Center. This has perks too today’s was seeing unusual deep purple flowers open on a rescued orchid.
Leonard served on the CBS Staff Advisory Committee and is now co chair of the Arts and Sciences Staff Advisory Committee. Currently, she is serving a two year term as Chair for the Association of Education and Research Greenhouse Curators (AERGC), a group which she joined when she started at Ohio State and has seen grow from a Midwestern to an international organization with about 500 members. She also maintains the website for the greenhouse and the new ASC staff advisory committee and has done a newsletter for AERGC.
How busy can one person be, we wonder? Free time? Hobbies? Not many, she confesses, since she is also raising two sons, but she is devoted to scrapbooking and gets together with a group of friends to indulge that passion once a week.
And finally, the answer to the obvious question is: five. That’s how many plants she has at home right now!
4 January 2005Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences Awarded to Dr. Richard Sayre
We have established a new title in our college, the Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences. This is the highest award given to faculty in our college, and carries with it a $10,000 per year research allowance. Yesterday I convened a joint meeting of the Faculty Advisory Committee and the Tenure and Promotion Committee to review nominations for this award.
We are pleased to report that the first faculty to receive this title are Dr. Michael Ostrowski (Molecular Genetics) and Dr. Richard Sayre (Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology). These two individuals have sterling records in the research laboratory, in the classroom, and in service to the university and profession.
Mike and Dick will assume their titles on January 1, 2005. We will have a celebration to honor their careers shortly thereafter -- details to follow.
Please join us in congratulating Professor Ostrowski and Professor Sayre!
16 November 2004NSF 2010 Award to Grotewold and Lamb: How Does Your Garden Grow?
NSF2010 GRANT HELPS SCIENTISTS LEARN HOW GARDENS GROW ON MOLECULAR LEVEL:
Arabidopsis 2010: Establishing Regulatory Networks in Arabidopsis
Integrating AGRIS with the Identification of Direct Targets for Transcription
Factors
The National Science Foundation has awarded researchers from the Plant Molecular Biology Department and the Department of Medical Genetics at Ohio State and CalState San Marcos a $2 million 2010 grant to undertake an interdisplinary study on how genes talk to each other during plant growth and development.
During the three-year project, which began September 1, the scientists hope to gain a better understanding of how a handful of specific proteins, called transcription factors, influence the genes that control two basic plant processes – flowering and epidermal functioning (hairs, pores, and pigments in the surface of leaves). Transcription factors essentially tell certain genes when and where to turn off and on, resulting in regulatory networks.
The long-term goal of the project is to establish the architecture of the regulatory networks that govern the expression of all plant genes. Over 1,500 transcription factors (TFs) are encoded by Arabidopsis thaliana, but today the cellular processes controlled by only a small subset of them are known. Identifying the direct targets of transcription factors is of central importance in establishing TF function, and provides a first step to start developing maps of regulatory networks that explain the expression of all genes. The goals of the project are two-fold. First, genes directly controlled by 31 transcription factors known to control flowering and epidermal functions in Arabidopsis thaliana will be identified in the laboratory. These targets will be identified using several techniques in parallel. One such technique will be ChIP-CHIP to identify DNA sites directly bound by the selected transcription factors. The antibodies used will be raised against either the endogenous protein or to epitopes added to the proteins. In addition, microarray studies will be used to identify the genes up or down regulated upon induction of TF-GR fusion proteins. The second aim of the project is to further develop a database of Arabidopsis TFs, the Arabidopsis Gene Regulatory Information Server (AGRIS; http://arabidopsis.med.ohio-state.edu). This database consists of several parts, including AtcisDB, which contains the promoters including identified and predicted TF binding sites, of over 25,000 annotated Arabidopsis genes. Experimental data will be combined with computational strategies to build AtcisDB into a user-friendly and effective tool to predict cis-regulatory elements in all Arabidopsis genes. AtTFDB is a database of all known and predicted TFs in the Arabidopsis genome. In addition, the 2010 project is allowing the development of a knowledgebase of regulatory networks. Using the data generated during the project as well as other published data, regulatory networks will be built by applying a variety of computational tools, using epidermal cell differentiation and flower development as foundations.
Scientists already know that plants have roughly 2,000 transcription factors. Understanding how these factors regulate genes could have a considerable impact on the future of agriculture, said Rebecca Lamb, a co-investigator on the grant and an assistant professor of Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology at Ohio State.
"What we learn by studying Arabidopsis right now may one day be applicable to crop plants, such as improving their nutritive value and perhaps even reducing the use of pesticides," she said.
If the computational results match what Lamb and her colleagues learn from their laboratory work – that is, if the computer program makes accurate predictions about how transcription factors and genes interact – they should be able to decipher the purpose of the other already-known plant transcription factors.
"The transcription factors we're studying in the laboratory are only a small subset of the factors we know about," said Erich Grotewold, the grant's principal investigator and an associate professor of plant cellular and molecular biology at Ohio State.
"It could take decades of laboratory work to analyze the 2,000-some known transcription factors," he continued. "Having the right computational tools – those that can predict the networks in which these transcription factors that we're not studying in the lab participate in – would save a lot of time."
The data generated by the grant will be available to the community through a transcription factor database, The Arabidopsis Gene Regulatory Information Server (AGRIS), in development by the group. In addition, materials generated during the course of the grant will be shared through the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center, a NSF-funded facility housed here at OSU and managed by Randy Scholl, Associate Professor in the PCMB Department.
Lamb and Grotewold are working with co-investigators Ramana Davuluri, a bioinformatics expert and an assistant professor of Molecular Virology, Immunology & Medical Genetics, and Betsy Read, an associate professor of biological sciences at California State University, San Marcos.
16 November 2004Brazil/Rutgers/Ohio Consortium in PMBB
Recognizing the unique and challenging issues facing scientists in the New World who are interested in developing collaborative -international research programs, a consortium of universities from the United States of America and Brazil (Ohio State University, Rutgers University, and University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) has initiated a seed-grant program to facilitate the exchange of scientists for the purpose of developing collaborative research programs. This program may be funded on a continuing basis and will focus on a different emerging topic in the life sciences each biennium.
2 November 2004
