In his installation address in September 2012, ISU President Leath announced initiatives to make available funding for interdisciplinary research projects to encourage and expand ISU research efforts.  On June 6, ISU announced Iowa State research teams, including teams headed by GDCB faculty, Martin Spalding, GDCB professor and associate dean of LAS and GDCB professor Drena Dobbs, will receive funding to pursue competitive grants to fund large-scale, multidisciplinary research efforts of national and international importance.

Professor Spalding will lead the team awarded a three-year $500,000 pursuit funding award for the research project entitled, “ISU Crop Engineering Consortium.”  Pursuit funds can be used for such things as teaching releases, hiring consultants to add value to teams and holding workshops to strengthen connections among ISU and external partners.  Anurgent grand challenge is to provide sufficient food, feed, fiber, biofuels and biorenewable chemicals for the world’s burgeoning population. Technologies that complement traditional management and breeding, but dramatically accelerate the production and testing of improved crops, are in critical demand. Professor Spalding’s proposal addresses the challenge through development of a Crop Bioengineering Consortium, comprising researchers from several universities. Using an innovative and transformative genome engineering technology, the consortium will build a platform that allows for rapid integration of promising traits into crop plants.

Professor Dobbs will lead the team awarded a one-year $100,000 proof-of-concept award. These awards provide pursuit funds for emerging research areas that are more limited in scope or require proof of concept before investigators can pursue larger funding.  The goal of the research entitled, “Identifying Potential RNA Therapeutic Targets in Infectious Disease,” is to establish the core of a future Consortium for RNA-based therapies. The team of interdisciplinary researchers is pursuing an innovative strategy for integrating new high-throughput experimental technologies with computational methods to identify and characterize novel targets for RNA-based therapies to treat infectious disease.

During the funding period, project teams will submit multiple proposals for external large-scale research grants.  The grants are part of the Presidential Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research, a program launched by Iowa State University President Steven Leath to support research efforts that could lead to major advances, discoveries and technologies.

ISU News Release