PECASE: Investigation of Disease-Resistance Proteins in Flowering Plants

提案标题：PECASE：花植物抗病蛋白的研究机构：加州大学伯克利分校本次PECASE奖的重点是三个方面：（1）在本科和研究生水平的计算生物学教学和培训;（2）继续发展分子生物学问题的计算方法，（3）利用这些工具对抗病蛋白和途径进行新的研究，以及细菌、病毒和真菌中的效应分子。该团队将应用新的算法和软件来分析和阐明开花植物先天免疫的关键决定因素，预测这些重要蛋白质家族的结构，功能，途径和复杂参与等。生物学家合作者将通过实验研究这些预测，提供关键的反馈。由于植物不能移动以逃避病原体的攻击，它们已经发展出复杂的策略和防御机制。这些策略中的许多在昆虫和其他动物（包括人类）中都有必然的结果。正因为如此，对植物抗病性的研究可以预期产生的见解不仅与具有改进的抗病性的植物新品系的基因工程（以及相应的增加作物产量和减少世界饥饿）有关，而且还可以提高我们对所有真核生物中先天免疫的理解，并产生对人类健康重要的医学和制药进步。生物学家将提供关键的反馈，指导和蛋白质功能和结构预测的实验验证。将开发软件和数据库技术，以便能够对新发现的植物和病原体蛋白进行高通量分类和收录。这个协同合作的目的是联合收割机结合两个假设驱动和假设生成的方法和不同领域的专业知识和背景知识，包含在两个组到一个统一的理解这些重要的蛋白质家族和pathways.This project was originally funded as a CAREER award，and was converted to a Presidential Early Career Award for Engineers and Scientists（PECASE）award in September 2004.

Proposal Title: PECASE: Investigation of Disease-Resistance Proteins inFlowering PlantsInstitution: University of California-BerkeleyThe focus of this PECASE award proposal is threefold: (1) teaching and training in computational biology at the undergraduate and graduate levels; (2) continued development of computational methods for problems in molecular biology, and (3) new investigation, using these tools, into disease resistance proteins and pathways, and their effector molecules in bacteria, viruses and fungi. The team will apply new algorithms and software to the analysis and elucidation of key determinants of innate immunity in flowering plants, to predict structure, function, pathway and complex involvement, and so on, for these important protein families. Biologist collaborators will investigate these predictions experimentally, providing critical feedback.Since plants cannot move to escape pathogen attack, they have developed sophisticated strategies and defense mechanisms. Many of these strategies have corollaries in insects and other animals, including human. Because of this, research into plant disease resistance can be expected to produce insights that are relevant not only for genetic engineering of new strains of plants with improved disease resistance (and corresponding increased crop production, and reduction of world hunger), but also to improve our understanding of innate immunity in all eukaryotic organisms, and produce medical and pharmaceutical advances important for human health. The biologists will provide critical feedback, direction, and experimental validation of predictions of protein function and structure. Software and database technologies will be developed to enable the high-throughput classification and inclusion of new plant and pathogen proteins as they are discovered. This synergistic collaboration is designed to combine both hypothesis-driven and hypothesis-generating approaches and the different domain expertise and background knowledge contained in the two groups into a unified understanding of these important protein families and pathways.This project was originally funded as a CAREER award, and was converted to a Presidential Early Career Award for Engineers and Scientists (PECASE) award in September 2004.