EPSCoR Workshop: A 2014 Workshop on Engineered Crops

爱荷华州立大学（ISU）正在组织一个研讨会，重点讨论在不断变化的气候条件下设计出健壮的农产品所需的知识、技术和教育。最终目标是为工程作物制定一个研究和教育路线图，这是EPSCoR社区感兴趣的，因为许多司法管辖区是农村，具有强大的农业遗产。研讨会汇集了具有提高作物性能专业知识的植物科学家，以及具有运输现象、热力学和建模知识的工程师，以解开优质植物品种的潜在结构和生理特性。基于工程和物理的植物运输现象建模仍处于起步阶段，但已经建立了近似模型并通过实验验证了植物中水和糖的运输。本次研讨会为植物科学家和工程师提供了开发工程作物通用语言的机会，分享正在进行的研究，形成新的合作伙伴关系，并设计“植物工程”学科-一个网络支持框架，将支持具有理想最佳性能的加速作物设计。粮食安全是人类面临的最大挑战之一。气候变化带来的环境压力正在加速对植物进行自然或基因工程改造的需求。作为应对这些挑战的一步，ISU的研讨会侧重于基于植物生理学和运输现象的工程设计方法的出现，以开发具有更高产量和/或更好地耐受气候变化引起的非生物胁迫的改良作物。这些技术已经达到了一个阶段，可以回答关于最佳作物表型的基本问题，并且这些答案有效地转化为作物改良。利用工程技术与基因工程相结合来定制农作物的目标是新颖的、有前途的，也是具有挑战性的。研讨会的产品包括一份书面路线图，概述了推进转基因作物所需的教育、研究和发展，以及出版物和一个展示成果的网站。更广泛的影响为了增加粮食供应，不断需要提高全球农作物生产的效率和产量。ISU的这次研讨会将为EPSCoR辖区的科学家和工程师提供机会，以发展设计和研究工程作物的跨学科方法。研讨会的活动将突出EPSCoR管辖范围内的农业企业和研究人员对工程植物发展的贡献，以及能够在这一领域工作的未来研究人员的教育。讲习班的招聘工作重点是来自EPSCoR辖区的初级教师和学生，包括来自附近地区的社区学院和学校的学生，这些学校在科学、技术、工程和数学方面的少数族裔入学率很高。

Iowa State University (ISU) is organizing a workshop focused on the knowledge, technology, and education needed to engineer agricultural products that are robust under changing climate. The ultimate goal is to develop a research and educational roadmap for engineered crops, of interest to the EPSCoR community because many jurisdictions are rural and have a strong agricultural heritage. The workshop is bringing together plant scientists, with expertise in improving crop performance, and engineers with knowledge of transport phenomena, thermodynamics, and modeling, to unlock the underlying structural and physiological properties of superior plant varieties. Engineering- and physics-based modeling of transport phenomena in plants is still in its infancy, but approximate models have been made and verified experimentally to describe the transport of water and sugar in plants. This workshop provides opportunities for plant scientists and engineers to develop a common language for engineered crops, share ongoing research, form new partnerships, and design the discipline of "plant engineering" - a cyber-enabled framework that will support accelerated crop design with desired optimal performance.Intellectual MeritFood security is among the top challenges facing humanity. Environmental stresses due to climate change are accelerating the need for plant modifications, either naturally or through genetic engineering. As a step towards addressing these challenges, ISU's workshop focuses on the emergence of engineering design methods rooted in plant physiology and transport phenomena, to develop improved crops with increased yield and/or better tolerance to abiotic stresses caused by climate change. These technologies have reached a stage where fundamental questions about optimal crop phenotypes can be answered, and the answers efficiently translated into crop improvement. The goal of tailoring crops using engineering know-how coupled with genetic engineering is novel, promising, and challenging. Workshop products include a written roadmap summarizing the necessary education, research and development to advance engineered crops, as well as publications, and a website for displaying outcomes.Broader ImpactsThere is a constant need to improve the efficiency and yield of global agricultural crop production in order to increase food supply. This workshop at ISU will offer opportunities to scientists and engineers from EPSCoR jurisdictions to develop an interdisciplinary approach towards the design and study of engineered crops. Activities in the workshop will highlight the contributions of agricultural businesses and researchers in EPSCoR jurisdictions to the development of engineered plants, and the education of future researchers able to work in this field. Workshop recruitment efforts focus on junior faculty and students from EPSCoR jurisdictions, including from community colleges and schools in the nearby locale that have high underrepresented minority science, technology, engineering, and mathematics enrollments.