Professor Mark Lubkowitz awarded $170.000 for
rice seed germination research
By Erin Blair, Staff Writer
Principal investigator Mark Lubkowitz, assistant professor of biology at St. Michael’s, has been awarded a $170,700 grant over three years from the National Science Foundation.
Students from St. Michael’s, the University of New York at Staten Island, and the University of Tennessee will be helping their professors, including Lubkowitz, in a project to examine the impact of transporters inside cells on successful germination of rice seeds.
The process made in order for Lubkowitz to receive the grant was a bit confusing, he said. First, his name was put into a “plant and molecular biology” group. From there, he was reviewed by five different people, whose comments were sent to a panel of 15 to 20 different scientists who then ranked each candidate.
There were 82 candidates total, and only seven or eight were chosen, Lubkowitz being one of them.
“There is no segregation of school’s either,” Lubkowitz said. “Smaller schools as well as bigger ones were all looked at equally.”
Lubkowitz went to Washington University to get his B.S., and then went on to earn his Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee. From there, Lubkowitz attended University of California at Berkeley to achieve his post doctorate degree. He is now in his seventh year teaching at St. Michael’s.
Lubkowitz is currently working on a project called “The Role of Oligopeptide Transporters in Germinating Rice Seeds.” This project was discussed first when Lubkowitz was attending U.C. Berkeley, when he had begun to discuss the Oligopeptide family, he said.
The grant has the potential to affect plant reproductive success through increasing our understanding of amino acid unloading, Lubkowitz said. This knowledge could enhance future breeding practices and transgenic technologies in cereal crops, he said.
The project will be useful in seed loading and unloading. Breeders will be able to look for better loading opportunities and will be able to rationally select lines to breed, he said.
Lubkowitz is not working alone. The co-investigators of this project are from Tennessee and City University of New York. The Tennessee group received a $150,000 grant and focuses mainly on the kinetics portion of the project, he said. CUNY also received $150,000 and focuses on the peptides portion.
Lubkowitz and his individual team finds the gene in the plant and sends it to Tennessee, who then deciphers how fast they move, he said. It is then sent to CUNY where the measurements are made as well as the protein for Lubkowitz.
Undergraduate student researchers at each of these different colleges will have a significant role in the research project, which will help each become more knowledgeable and used to regular laboratory work, Lubkowitz said. Lubkowitz’s students will complete the plant molecular biology components of the project.
Lubkowitz’s student team includes juniors Andrew Reid and Nolan Sutherland. Stephanie Ketcham will also be joining the group in the fall as a senior.
Ketcham said the only lab experience that she has so far, other than in class, is working at Green Mountain Antibodies, a company in Burlington which manufactures biological molecules.
“GMA is a production lab,” she explained. “So the work there tends to be methodical and there isn’t very much trial and error.” However, research generally introduces problems or unexpected results that require some problem solving, she said.
At GMA, Ketcham was able to learn several experimental techniques as well as purification techniques.
“I’m not entirely sure what Professor Lubkowitz has planned for me in the fall,” she said. “But I am definitely excited to have more experience in a lab, and also for a different type of lab work.”
So far, the group has identified nine gene families, four of which are involved in the seed. They were able to clone them and look at each separately.
The next step involves a lot of different things, Lubkowitz said. They will continue to move small proteins, and then cut the seed in order to localize where they are. They will try to discover what cells within a gene have the favorite gene.
Contact Erin Blair at eblair@smcvt.edu
|
