NC State receives NSF grant to discover plant 'swi...(. Finally the information will be turned...)

"We're starting with lignin biosynthesis, but this 'systems approach' could really be used for any biological process in any plant," Chiang says. "It could guide strategies for improved plant productivity for materials, energy and food."

Working with Chiang is a group of 37 researchers, including co-principal investigators Dr. Ronald Sederoff, Distinguished University Professor and co-director of the Forest Biotechnology Group at NC State, Dr. Joel Ducoste, associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at NC State, Dr. Fikret Isik, research associate professor of forestry and environmental resources at NC State, and Dr. John Ralph, professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Graduate and postdoctoral education and training in systems biology is a major emphasis. Six graduate students will conduct part of the proposed research for their dissertations. In addition, outreach and education efforts will focus on under-represented groups at the university and high school levels. The Kenan Fellows Program for Curriculum and Leadership Development will develop curricular materials to bring cutting-edge plant genomics and systems biology to high school classrooms.

"This project represents the efforts of a group of people getting together and trying to develop systems biology by integrating individual work that has been carried out over a lifetime," Sederoff says. "We are using systems approaches that are typical of engineering, but that bring together biology from the perspective of developing predictive models. The integration of genomic and proteomic science to molecular biology to biochemistry to chemistry to statistics to wood products to predictive modeling makes this research really unique. This 'switchbo
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