Since Robin Buell join the University of Georgia faculty in capitulation 2021 , there ’s been a flurry of body process in her lab . Buell and her research worker have nine projects underway in plant genomics – and Buell has already secure millions of dollar in federal funding .
This complex , very claim work – begun in 1999 when Buell begin sequencing plant genomes – has go to wide - crop breakthroughs across a variety of field , including medicine , farming and energy yield . Her inquiry has position the foundation to boost planetary solid food supplies through improving harvest output and plant daring , increase the biofuel voltage of bioenergy crops , and harness the integral power of works to product healing substances .
Robin Buell , whose inquiry centre on plant genomics and bioinformatics , working in a works ontogeny bedroom . ( photograph by Dorothy Kozlowski / UGA )
“ At least a third of all pharmaceuticals either come from a flora or they ’re originally found in a plant and are now chemically synthesized , ” enjoin Buell . “ Now we have all the puppet so that we can count on out very quickly in relative time how the plant produce these compound . ”
Accelerating enquiry for cancer medicationBuell , who is the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Chair in Crop Genomics in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences , has more than $ 4 million in federal funding – contributing to the 65 pct increase in the National Institutes for Health and National Science Foundation outlay at UGA over the past six days .
Right now , her lab is at oeuvre on Madagascar periwinkle , commonly know as vinca , a low ornamental industrial plant . An excerpt from the works is used to produce anti - cancer drugs and the process is presently extremely expensive . “ Very little amount of money of it are produced in the plant life , and it ’s a very complex compound , so it ca n’t be synthesized , ” she state .
Robin Buell in her Center for Applied Genetic Technologies laboratory . ( photograph by Andrew Davis Tucker / UGA )
Buell and her team are on the cusp of finalise exactly how that compound is made , a game - changing discovery that was 13 years in the making , a procedure she said would now take only about two years .
“ Advances in technology now allow us to do biology with preciseness , ” she enjoin . “ you may make industrial plant environmentally sustainable , raise crops to direct food and nutrition deficiencies in crop , and you may do it so much quicker . What mass once took 100 years to do , we can do to almost any crop in less than 10 years , if not five . ”
Sequencing the rice genomeBuell is a true pioneer in the field of view of plant genomics . Back in 1999 , Buell started her groundbreaking ceremony work on sequence the rice genome as an researcher at The Institute for Genomic Research . “ Other than the successiveness of mouse capitulum cress , a model for familial written report , there were no flora genome sequences , ” said Buell , on the impulsion for the research . “ The thought was that half the people in the world get most of their calories from rice every day , and by having access to the genome , the DNA sequence , we could improve rice and breed it well . ”
Robin Buell scrutinise her tomato plants in a plant life growth sleeping accommodation . ( pic by Dorothy Kozlowski / UGA )
That work rent to a stint at Michigan State University where she was a University Distinguished Faculty and MSU Foundation Professor of Plant Biology from 2007 until 2021 . She worked on a wide form of labor including understanding the genome of tepary bean , which is heat- , drought- and pest - resistive , to using genomics to increase the biofuel potency of switchgrass by improving the craw ’s ability to go wintertime .
Since come at UGA , Buell has kept up the pace . She ’s already been take as the recipient of the esteemed 2022 McClintock Prize by the Maize Genetics Cooperation Advocacy Committee for her groundbreaking ceremony oeuvre in plant genome social organisation , single-valued function and evolution . An expert in relative genomics , bioinformatics and computational biology , Buell ’s also divvy up her enquiry and collaborating with colleagues around the world .
“ Robin has the rare power to render DoS - of - the - artistry genomics technologies to suffice hard biological and biochemical interrogation , ” said Sarah O’Connor , director of the Department of Natural Product Biosynthesis at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Germany . O’Connor has been collaborating for 10 age with Buell long distance on Catharanthus roseus , a medicinal plant that pee-pee the anti - cancer agent vinblastine . “ We could not have elucidated the footpath without Robin . Robin and her group gave us access to in high spirits caliber transcriptomic data at a very early phase , allowing us to be ‘ ahead of the curve ’ in this extremely competitive field . ”
Robin Buell work with plant specimens in her Center for Applied Genetic Technologies laboratory . ( Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker / UGA )
The two are presently working on more projects . “ I conceive in the come class we are live on to have some very exciting story to tell , ” O’Connor say .
Seeking answers from agricultureAnd Buell just find a new grant that ’s she ’s already putting to apply . “ We ’re prove to make tomatoes that can make some very high - value chemicals , ” said Buell . “ These chemicals – one is an antimicrobic and the other one is an anti - insecticidal , or mosquito - cide – cost a bunch of money per kg , are hard to naturally educe from natural generator and you ca n’t chemically synthesise them , ” enjoin Buell . One of these compounds has traditionally make out from trees , which only grow in sealed parts of the world and take time to grow . “ If you could just get a Lycopersicon esculentum fruit to make it , you may grow these anywhere anytime in a greenhouse , ” said Buell .
Buell ’s passion is fuel by finding these kinds of solution . “ I ’m face for interesting biological questions that my skills and expertness can answer that we could n’t answer before , ” she said .
Detail of a industrial plant specimen growing in a vial , in the hand of prof Robin Buell . ( Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker / UGA )
Buell ’s scientific curiosity extends to possible gene - edit out efforts in staple crops . “ What we ’re enquire aright now is ‘ How over the course of organic evolution did some plants have the ability to make a genus Tuber and others did n’t ? ’ ” Besides being an interesting intellectual exercise , the work could have large , substantial - earthly concern repercussions . Because tubers – the fat solution part on works like potatoes – are underground , they have an inherent ability to overwinter and outride protected from drought and other focus . If Buell ’s team can fancy out how this happened evolutionarily , this knowledge could be used in re - engineering other plants .
UGA is rosy to have Buell onboard and she is quite felicitous to be here . “ I ’m from Michigan , and I trust it ’s snowing there today , ” she laughed . But it ’s clear that it ’s not just lack of snow that brought her to UGA . “ There are just so many opportunities here . They ’re gain big investing in their enquiry and it ’s intelligibly a university that has momentum . ”
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