Professor Brendel receives NSF grant for plant genomes project

Brendel and Dorman

Dr. Volker Brendel and Dr. Karin Dorman, CoPI

September 2011

Dr. Volker P. Brendel, Bergdahl Professor of Bioinformatics in GDCB, has been awarded just under $1.5m in NSF-sponsored funding for a research project entitled, “IPGA: Characterization, Modeling, Prediction, and Visualization of the Plant Transcriptome.” Dr. Brendel, along with CoPIs: Dr. Karin Dorman, associate professor of genetics, development and cell biology and statistics at ISU; Dr. Shannon Schlueter (University of North Carolina - Charlotte), and Dr. Shailesh Lal (Oakland University), will generate standardized, accurate protein-coding gene structure annotation for 25 plant genomes from a wide range of the phylogenetic spectrum. Initial emphasis will be on improved annotation of recently sequenced genomes, which will benefit the entire community of researchers working on these important crops. Senior personnel are Dr. Jon Duvick of GDCB and Dr. Yasser El-Manzalawy of Computer Science at ISU.

Software developed and data generated in this research is freely available through project Web sites, in particular www.plantgdb.org. The project's plan for integration of research and education will train a new generation of scientists to work on genomics data with the broad range of interdisciplinary approaches represented by the project team.