Grants
This article was originally printed in the December 2005 issue of CLASnotes.
The Genetics of Pine
George Casella
The symbol of life in the dead of winter, the evergreen, is used for more than just holiday decorations. In fact, the loblolly pine is the most widely cultivated timber species in the Southeast, accounting for more than half of the nation’s total wood production. Statistics Professor and Chair George Casella, along with IFAS colleagues, is working to decode the loblolly pine genome in hopes of building a better tree.
“The goal is to try to associate phenotypic traits, or traits you can see—such as how the tree grows and its chemical composition—with the genetics, in the ultimate hope of actually manipulating the genetics to have stronger, more disease resistant trees,” Casella says. He and faculty in the UF School of Forest Resources and Conservation—Gary Peter, John Davis, Dudley Huber and Matias Kirst—have received a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Plant Genome Research Program to study loblolly pine genetics.
While the IFAS researchers on the team will be identifying gene sequences and collecting trait information—such as growth rate, wood quality and disease resistance—Casella will use his expertise as a statistician to make meaningful associations between the identified genes and those traits. His work is part of the growing field of statistical genetics, which uses statistical methods to help geneticists organize the vast amount of information found in genetic codes, and relate it to traits in a meaningful way. A university-wide graduate program in genetics was recently approved by the Faculty Senate and is slated to begin training future PhD’s in statistical genetics in the fall of 2006.
“Fundamentally, we have gotten to a point where our technology generates an enormous amount of data, so much that we need help organizing and handling it,” says Kenneth Berns, director of the UF Genetics Institute. “When you are dealing with something like population genetics that has so many variables, you need to have special approaches to process all those variables and their applications. That’s where statistical genetics comes in.”
Casella, Peter, Davis, Kirst and Huber are all members of the Genetics Institute and have worked together on several projects since Casella arrived at UF in 2000. The team holds a weekly discussion group on biological and statistical genetics and genomics for faculty and graduate students in CLAS, IFAS and Medicine. According to Berns, the grant is one of the largest the Genetics Institute has received since its creation in 1998.
The team will be comparing 5,000–10,000 of the 50,000 genes in the loblolly pine for relationships to hundreds of traits—focusing on those that unveil the secrets of the tree’s disease resistance and wood quality. The findings will not only help growers produce a better crop, the researchers say, but also reduce pressure to harvest America’s sensitive forest ecosystems, including old-growth forests.
“It is important for our economy to become more efficient, so we are identifying genetically superior trees that can grow on a smaller footprint of land,” Davis says. “If we can grow more wood on fewer acres, it should take the pressure off of harvesting trees that should not be harvested.”
—Buffy Lockette
Grants through the Division of Sponsored Research
October 2005: $2,777,482
BAMIA A A |
AALL |
US DEPT OF EDUCATION |
$3,222 |
COLLOQUIAL ARABIC, PART OF THE GLOBAL STUDIES RESEARCH AND CURRICULUM |
GE J |
AST |
NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER US DEPT OF THE INTERIOR |
$256,050 |
COMPACT HIGH RESOLUTION 3-D IMAGING SPECTROMETER FOR DISCOVERING OASIS ON MARS |
TELESCO C M |
AST |
CALIFORNIA INST OF TECHNOLOGY JET PROPULSION LABORATORY NASA |
$50,661 |
A MID-INFRARED STUDY OF CIRCUMSTELLAR DEBRIS DISK EVOLUTION |
CHRISTOU G |
CHE |
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION |
$325,147 |
QUANTUM SPIN DYNAMICS IN MOLECULAR NANOMAGNETS |
DOLBIER JR W R |
CHE |
ARKEMA INC |
$94,945 |
SYNTHESIS OF NOVEL FLUORINATED POLYMERS DERIVED FROM OCTAFLUORO (2.2) PARACYCLOPHANE (AF4) |
KATRITZKY A R; HALL C D |
CHE |
SMITH COLLEGE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION |
$90,370 |
CATION FLUX BY REDOX-ACTIVE SYNTHETIC ION CHANNELS |
SCHANZE K S |
CHE |
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION |
$186,085 |
PHOTOPHYSICS, EXCITON AND CHARGE TRANSPORT IN CONJUGATED ORGANOMETALLIC OLIGOMERS AND AGGREGATES |
SCHANZE K S |
CHE |
VISTEON CORPORATION |
$19,427 |
STRAIN SENSITIVE COATING |
TAN W |
CHE |
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY |
$191,000 |
GENOMIC APPROACHES TO NEURONAL DIVERSITY AND PLASTICITY |
TAN W |
CHE |
LIFE SCIENCES INC NATL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH |
$217,911 |
HANDHELD GENE ANALYZER BASED ON DYE-DOPED NANOLPARTICLES |
SAPIENZA C M |
CSD |
US DEPT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS GAINESVILLE VA MEDICAL CENTER |
$10,000 |
LABORATORY IMPROVEMENT FOR ORAL MOTOR INITIATIVE |
KREPPEL A D |
EUS |
EUROPEAN UNION |
$18,105 |
JEAN MONNET AD PERSONAM CHAIR |
RUSSO R M |
GEOL |
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION |
$65,617 |
STUDIES OF CRUST AND UPPER MANTLE STRUCTURE MANTLE FLOW AND GEODYNAMICS OF CHILE RIDGE SUBDUCTION |
RUSSO R M |
GEOL |
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION |
$42,892 |
STUDIES OF CRUST AND UPPER MANTLE STRUCTURE MANTLE FLOW AND GEODYNAMICS OF CHILE RIDGE SUBDUCTION |
RAO M GLOVER J |
MAT |
NATL SECURITY AGENCY |
$10,000 |
SPECIAL YEAR IN ANALYSIS AND PROBABILITY THEORY 2005-2006 |
ACOSTA D E; MITSELMAKHER G |
PHY |
US DEPT OF ENERGY CHICAGO OPERATIONS OFFICE |
$46,847 |
US CMS TRIGGER SUBSYSTEM FY 2004 |
ACOSTA D E; MITSELMAKHER G |
PHY |
US DEPT OF ENERGY CHICAGO OPERATIONS OFFICE |
$54,000 |
US CMS TRIGGER SUBSYSTEM FY 2004 |
HILL S O |
PHY |
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION |
$325,147 |
QUANTUM SPIN DYNAMICS IN MOLECULAR NANOMAGNETS |
HIRSCHFELD P J |
PHY |
US NAVY |
$64,549 |
THEORY OF DEFECTS IN CUPRATE SUPERCONDUCTORS |
KONIGSBERG J; MITSELMAKHER G |
PHY |
US DEPT OF ENERGY CHICAGO OPERATIONS OFFICE |
$30,445 |
TASK H: EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH IN COLLIDER PHYSICS AT CDF |
MITSELMAKHER G; KORYTOV A |
PHY |
US DEPT OF ENERGY CHICAGO OPERATIONS OFFICE |
$119,102 |
TASK G: EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH IN COLLIDER PHYSICS AT CMS |
MITSELMAKHER G; KORYTOV A |
PHY |
US DEPT OF ENERGY CHICAGO OPERATIONS OFFICE |
$123,355 |
TASK G: EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH IN COLLIDER PHYSICS AT CMS |
MULLER G |
PHY |
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION |
$128,770 |
ADVANCED LIGO: RESEARCH ON MODE MATCHING AND CONTROL SYSTEMS |
TANNER D B |
PHY |
US DEPT OF ENERGY CHICAGO OPERATIONS OFFICE |
$45,152 |
UF PARTICIPATION IN ADMX, THE AXION DARK-MATTER EXPERIMENT |
WOODARD R P |
PHY |
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION |
$39,382 |
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY AND COSMOLOGY |
HEDGE D M; WILLIAMS P J |
POL |
US DEPT OF JUSTICE |
$170,961 |
IMPLEMENT A LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC SERVICE MENTORING AND EDUCATION |
KREPPEL A D |
POL |
US DEPT OF EDUCATION |
$2,000 |
FLORIDA NETWORK FOR GLOBAL STUDIES TITLE VI NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTER |
HERMER-VAZQUEZ L |
PSY |
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION |
$14,840 |
DDDAS-TMRP: DYNAMIC DATA-DRIVEN BRAIN-MACHINE INTERFACES |
ROWLAND N E |
PSY |
OSPREY PHARMACEUTICAL |
$15,000 |
NICOTINIC DRUG DESIGN |
OSENBERG C W; ST MARY C M |
ZOO |
FRENCH AMER CULTURAL EXCHANGE |
$16,500 |
OCEANIC BRIDGES: A FLORIDA- FRANCE TRAINING AND RESEARCH COOPERATIVE IN CORAL REEF CONSERVATION AND BIODIVERSITY |
Photo by Jane Dominguez