College STation, Texas
November 19, 2003
Diverse.
To society, the word means racial, ethnic and cultural
differences. To scientists interested in biological diversity,
the meaning is no different.
So
assembling Hispanic, African-American and Caucasian students and
professors to examine the genome of grain sorghum, and tap into
the collection of 40,000 different varieties from around the
world, seems like the sensible thing to do.
Outreach
to under-represented groups in hopes of attracting new
scientists is part of a $2 million sorghum genome grant, funded
under the Plant Genome Project of the National Science
Foundation, recently awarded to a team led by Dr. Patricia
Klein, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station researcher at
Texas A&M University's
Institute for Plant Genomics and Biotechnology.
Klein
and co-investigators Dr. John Mullet and Dr. Robert Klein will
work with Dr. Tineke Sexton at Houston Community College to
teach aspiring students how to generate and analyze genetic
fingerprints on the sorghum varieties and to present their
findings in various scientific arenas. Mullet is the institute's
director and Robert Klein is a U.S. Department of
Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service scientist.
"We need
all the talent we can get in the sciences," said Mullet, himself
once a liberal arts major with hopes for a law degree until a
biology class grabbed his interest.
Here's
how it will work. Klein, Klein and Mullet will train Sexton in
their labs at Texas A&M. Sexton, in turn, will train HCC
students to extract DNA and fingerprint a subset of lines from
the 40,000-variety sorghum collection, using funds from the
grant to help set up labs at HCC. The sorghum team also will
give guest lectures to Sexton's classes in Houston, and the
Internet will be used to keep the students and faculty
connected.
Since
the Plant Genome Research Project began in 1998, NFS has awarded
some $375 million to 120 projects. Over the last decade, Mullet
noted, NSF has emphasized trying to integrate research with
education and training.
"The
makeup of the Houston Community College System is exactly the
demographics that we needed to tap into, and their enrollment is
about the same as here at Texas A&M," Patricia Klein said. "That
made the connection for us."
HCC
awards associate degrees to one of the most diverse student
bodies in the country, according to Patricia Klein. Its 50,000
students are 23 percent African-American and 36 percent
Hispanic.
The
sorghum team had been grappling with how to interest a diverse
set of college students to participate in their research when
Sexton, a former doctoral student of Mullet's, called with a
plea. Sexton, a native of The Netherlands now teaching at HCC,
was looking for her former professor's support on a grant she
sought to help engage her students in science.
Out of
the $1.9 million overall grain sorghum genome project,
therefore, the team carved out some $200,000 to work with the
Houston college's undergraduates. Mullet said the grant will be
augmented with funds from the Heep Foundation as well.
Patricia
Klein hopes to see "excitement from the students who realize the
potential." She said the project will "put a face with a name"
as students get to work with researchers on the high-profile
genome project.
"I would
hope that some who are involved with this project at the
community college will want to stay in science," she said. "And
those who come to Texas A&M would be able to come to work in our
labs here as well."
That
connection would benefit not only the students but the
researchers who acknowledged that finding students who want to
work in science labs can be difficult.
Work by
the students will have a major impact on the grain sorghum
research. Grain sorghum is grown throughout much of the world
and is important both as livestock feed and for human
consumption. Genes for a trait of major importance - drought
resistance - will be the focus of the overall project which will
take about four years, Mullet said. |