RCN: Creating and Fostering the Plant Cell Atlas Community

快速的气候变化和其他环境因素正在增加社会对科学家和工程师基于植物的解决方案的需求。植物细胞图谱（PCA）社区的长期目标是建立一个全面的植物细胞和组织中分子的位置，相互作用和功能的地图，以加速基础研究和应对社会挑战。PCA社区将为生成和整合大型植物数据集制定标准，这些数据集最终将有助于为在细胞水平上合成生物学如何工作奠定基础。RCN将建立和培育最终为PCA生成数据和基础设施的社区。该RCN还将为早期职业科学家提供良好的网络和跨学科培训机会，并向K-12学生和公众宣传植物的重要性和魅力。PCA社区将强调扩大来自服务不足社区的科学家和学生的参与，为参加研讨会和活动提供财政支持，并通过巡回科学艺术展等举措在历史上黑人学院和大学的校园中建立强大的影响力。未来几代由RCN培养的科学家将开拓创新和可持续的解决方案，以缓解和克服气候变化导致的粮食，材料和能源短缺。基础，转化和应用植物生物学中的许多问题等待答案，需要新的数据和分析框架，将不同的数据类型联系起来。合成生物学、基因组工程、机器人、人工智能、结构生物学、质谱和显微镜技术正在取得快速进展。这些技术正被应用于植物，以剖析专门的细胞类型的功能和相互作用，以及它们对环境压力、宿主共生和生产有用产品的反应能力。然而，这些新技术提供的信息将是最强大的，如果它被整合和标准化，以提供不同的生物分子之间的功能连接的新见解，提出新的细胞功能假设，并模拟细胞过程。通过该RCN建立的社区将率先将大型、多样化的植物数据集整合到植物细胞图谱中，最终实现创新和可持续的解决方案，以应对气候变化带来的挑战。区域协调网络将：1）开发用于定义植物细胞类型的规则; 2）为PCA社区提供网络和培训机会，特别是通过研讨会，网络研讨会和研讨会为早期职业参与者提供机会; 3）建立数据集成的指导方针和最佳实践，从而制定标准化的数据收集协议和分析方法; 4）促进生成由与人工智能社区的连接驱动的图像注释/分析的新方法; 5）开发PCA网站，作为科学家可以找到实验协议、社区标准和可用资源链接的中心平台; 6）促进研究和赠款申请方面的合作，以生成数据、开发工具和创建计算基础设施。该奖项由分子和细胞生物科学部的细胞动力学和功能以及遗传机制集群共同资助，沿着的还有植物，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识产权进行评估，被认为值得支持。优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Rapid climate change and other environmental factors are increasing societal demands for plant-based solutions from scientists and engineers. The long-term goal of the Plant Cell Atlas (PCA) community is to build a comprehensive map of the locations, interactions, and functions of molecules in plant cells and tissues to accelerate both fundamental research and meeting societal challenges. The PCA community will set standards for generating and integrating large plant data sets that will ultimately contribute to the foundation of synthesizing how biology works at the cellular level. The RCN will establish and nurture the community that will ultimately generate data and infrastructure for the PCA. This RCN will also provide excellent networking and interdisciplinary training opportunities for early career scientists and outreach to K-12 students and the general public about the importance and fascination of plants. The PCA community will emphasize broadening participation of scientists and students from underserved communities by providing financial support for participating in workshops and events and establishing a strong presence on campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) via a travelling scientific art exhibit, among other initiatives. Future generations of scientists trained by the RCN will pioneer innovative and sustainable solutions to mitigate and overcome food, materials, and energy shortages expected to result from climate change.Many questions in fundamental, translational, and applied plant biology await answers, requiring both new data and analytical frameworks that make connections among disparate data types. Rapid advances in technologies are being made in synthetic biology, genome engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, structural biology, mass spectrometry, and microscopy. These technologies are being applied to plants to dissect the functions and interactions of specialized cell types and their capacity to respond to environmental stresses, host symbioses, and to produce useful products. However, the information provided by these new technologies will be most powerful if it is integrated and standardized to provide fresh insights into the functional connections among diverse biomolecules, to suggest new hypotheses for cellular functions, and to model cellular processes. The community established through this RCN will pioneer the integration of large, diverse plant datasets into a Plant Cell Atlas that will ultimately enable innovative and sustainable solutions to the challenges expected from climate change. The RCN will: 1) develop rubrics for defining plant cell types; 2) provision networking and training opportunities for the PCA community, especially for early career participants through workshops, webinars, and symposia; 3) establish guidelines and best practices for data integration, resulting in standardized data collection protocols and analysis methods; 4) facilitate the generation of new methods for image annotation/analysis driven by connections to the artificial intelligence community; 5) develop the PCA website as a central platform where scientists can find experimental protocols, community standards, and links to available resources; and 6) foster collaborations on research and grant applications for generating data, developing tools, and creating computational infrastructures. This award is being co-funded by the Cellular Dynamics and Function and the Genetic Mechanisms clusters of the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, along with the Plant, Fungal and Microbial Developmental Mechanisms Program and the Plant Genome Research Program of the Division of Integrative and Organismal Systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.