Science Market Update

Genome Research at UC Riverside Gets $4.8M NSF Funding

Posted by Margie Nieuwkerk on Thu, May 12, 2011

A grant from the National Science Foundation has provided $4.8 million research funding for UC Riverside enabling researchers Susan R. Wessler, and Jason Stajich to investigate  various rice cultivars using genome sequencing and seeing how these cultivars react to drought, disease, and flooding.  

The rice plants are mutagenized with Transposable Elements (TE), which identify interesting characteristics within a particular strain and help locate specific elements causing a characteristic within that gene.  

With the current severe weather and climate stresses on agriculture as a whole, this research is very timely, rice being one of the main global food staples .  Additionally the  funding will  allow researchers to generate resources in the scientific community, enabling them to follow TE movement and find out how traits are determined by the insertion of a TE in a gene.


UC Riverside researchers will be making extensive use of a Solexa/Illumina HiSeq2000 instrument  on several rice cultivars, to  measure gene expression for each cultivar.  The instrument is part of the UC Riverside Institute for Integrative Genome Biology (IIGB) genomics core, where UC Riverside genomics studies are conducted.

For more detailed information about this research click here

For Southern California Researchers
If you are interested in seeing latest generation lab equipment, finding out about  new lab techniques, networking with other researchers and science industry professionals, or comparing prices on lab supplies get more UC Riverside BioResearch Product FairTM Event information or register today for this event.


For Science Lab Vendors
If you are interested in providing assistance in the form of lab equipment or supplies for the UC Riverside researchers and would like to meet with them click here to find out when and where you can meet them.

Photo credit:
Worakit Sirijinda / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

UC Riverside Vendor Information

Tags: University of California Riverside, California, Genomics, Southwest Region

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