UC Riverside rice geneticist receives high honor from US Department of A...( RIVERSIDE Calif. For their landmark...)

RIVERSIDE, Calif. For their landmark research leading to the development of flood-tolerant rice that can benefit farmers in flood-prone areas worldwide, Julia Bailey-Serres of UC Riverside, Pamela Ronald of UC Davis and David Mackill of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines will be honored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) with the 2008 USDA National Research Initiative Discovery Award.

The three scientists are, or have been, principle investigators on grants the USDA has awarded them for rice research. Their research achievements will be celebrated at a ceremony at UC Riverside from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 5, in Rooms 205/206, Engineering II.

Bailey-Serres, a professor of genetics in the Center for Plant Cell Biology and the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, is the lead recipient of the USDA award. She has been the principle investigator on three USDA-funded projects that led to the identification and characterization of genes in rice that are responsible for flood tolerance. Two postdoctoral researchers, Kenong Xu (UC Davis) and Takeshi Fukao (UC Riverside), contributed largely to the research as well.

Gale A. Buchanan, the undersecretary for research education and economics at USDA, and Colien Hefferan, an administrator for the Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service, will present the awards to Bailey-Serres and her colleagues.<
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