Collaborative Research on Plant Stress Response Through Innovations in Phenomics and Molecular Imaging Technologies

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Non-technical DescriptionScientists in Arkansas and Missouri propose to create an interdisciplinary, state-of-the-art Bioimaging Consortium that enables researchers to adapt food, fiber, and fuel crops to meet the challenges of a changing climate and a growing world population. The ability of plants to adapt to stress, and the enhancement of these adaptations via biotechnology and breeding represent a means of mitigating the increased pressure on the agricultural economy. Researchers at the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, the University of Missouri, Lincoln University, and Washington University St. Louis will use molecular and plant imaging techniques to generate new tools and discoveries to reduce crop losses to stresses such as drought, salinity, insects and diseases. The project will promote diverse and inclusive workforce development practices while training students and creating linkages with private industry through internships and a joint seminar series. In addition, the group will promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education by working with industry to develop a new competency model for primary and undergraduate education in bioimaging. This model will be implemented by disseminating a hands-on teaching module for K-12 teachers to develop key competencies, and by creating undergraduate and graduate course modules.Technical Description Bioimaging technologies have transformative potential to overcome the phenotyping bottleneck that currently limits the ability to predict the phenotypic consequences of genetic variation. The proposed AR and MO Plant Bioimaging Consortium will bring together multiple disciplines (synthetic chemistry, radiochemistry, imaging science, plant biology, bioengineering, computational biology and informatics) to address a consequence of increased climate variability, and also one of the Five Grand Challenge areas in biology, specifically, to predict an organism?s phenotype based on its genotype. Multi-disciplinary teams will work collaboratively on four experimental models to generate new knowledge in plant stress biology and develop bioimaging tools essential to the plant science community. The consortium will also create a seed grant program to enable plant biologists throughout AR and MO to apply bioimaging approaches to study a wide variety of stress responses in multiple plant species. New knowledge in plant biology will include a better understanding of how four key physiological processes - the transport of nutrients, accumulation of reactive oxygen species, metabolism of antioxidants, and partitioning of photoassimilates - are modulated in response to stress. Methodological advances will include new protocols, molecular probes, data analysis algorithms, and pipelines needed to apply HTP and MI to plant stress biology. During the three years of this Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-2 project, the program expects to provide services to over 130 plant biologists in the region, while directly training the first wave of twenty undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral scholars in bioimaging. The consortium will help build the critical interdisciplinary workforce that AR and MO need to develop a biotechnology industry, which is a major component of the innovation economy planned for both states. Lastly, the proposed activities would advance scientific literacy in the two states by developing new, evidence-based, hands-on teaching techniques and science strategies for K-12 schools.