Dr. Christine Chase (Course Coordinator), Professor - Horticultural Sciences;  Graduate Program in Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (PMCB Program)
Ph.D. in Biology/Genetics, University of Virginia
Office:  2215 Fifield Hall
Tel:  392-1928 ext 316
Fax:  392-6479
e-mail:   ctdc@ifas.ufl.edu
http://www.hos.ufl.edu/ctdcweb/index.htm
Research interests: Plant mitochondrial biogenesis and function
Mitochondria, the  site of the TCA cycle, respiratory electron transfer and ATP synthesis, are essential to higher eukaryotic life. Mitochondrial function depends upon the coordinate action of mitochondrial and nuclear genomes. Research in my laboratory focuses on the molecular-genetic dissection of mitochondrial biogenesis and function in higher organisms.  This  presents a challenge because mutations disrupting mitochondrial function are lethal in obligate aerobes. The cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) systems of higher plants provide a solution to this dilemma. The mitochondrial genome encodes CMS, the maternally inherited failure to produce functional pollen. Nuclear fertility restoration genes block or compensate for the expression of CMS genes in the mitochondria, resulting in a male-fertile phenotype.  We investigate molecular and genetic mechanisms of CMS and nuclear fertility restoration systems to understand the mechanisms by which nuclear genes influence the organization, inheritance and expression of mitochondrial genomes.

Dr. Dean Gabriel, Professor - Plant Pathology & PMCB Program
Ph.D. in Genetics/Botany/Plant Pathology, Michigan State University
Office:  2559 Fifield Hall
Tel:    392-7239
Fax:  392-6532
e-mail:  gabriel@biotech.ufl.edu
http://plantpath.ifas.ufl.edu/plpPeople/Faculty/Gabriel/Gabriel.htm
Research interests:  The genetics of host/parasite interactions.
The most experimentally tractable host/parasite interactions involve plants and microbes, simply because it is much easier to perform genetic analyses (crosses, genetic transformations) on plant hosts and their microbial pathogens, than on animal hosts and their microbial pathogens.  This work involves making transgenic plants and microbes, and the techniques involve understanding the physical details (at the molecular level) of recombination.  Most recently my work has taken us into the realm of host/parasite signaling (how does the parasite get the host to do things it does not naturally want to do?), the discovery of signal delivery systems (as a part of microbial virulence) and research on parasite protein signals targeted to host cell nuclei.

Dr. Curt Hannah, Professor - Horticultural Sciences & PMCB Program
Ph.D. in Genetics, University of Wisconsin
Office: 2211 Fifield Hall
Tel:  392-1928 ext 315
Fax:  392-6479
e-mail:   hannah@ifas.ufl.edu
http://www.hos.ufl.edu/LCHweb/
Research interests:  The molecular-genetics of starch biosynthesis in higher plants; the effects of introns and transposons on gene expression
The corn seed represents an ideal experimental playground.  Its major components are starch (70% by weight), protein (15% by weight), lipids and other macromolecules.  Because corn seeds are large and easy to examine, subtle and not so subtle genetic differences are easily studied.  Interesting studies have focused on the huge collection of mutants that change the size, shape and texture of the seed.  We have focused on the mutants affecting the synthesis of the major seed component, starch.  Our research is multifaceted.  We study adenosine diphosphoglucose pyrophosphorylase, a rate limiting enzyme in the starch biosynthetic pathway.  We use transposable elements as site-specific in vivo mutagens to alter the regulatory  properties of the enzyme.  We also use conventional site-specific mutagenesis and expression in bacteria to fine-tune interesting mutants first found in the corn plant.  We study spontaneous mutants for their own sake.  As a consequence of previous studies, introns (sequences that form part of the gene but not part of the mature messenger RNA) have captured our research interest. Currently we are testing the hypothesis that a major role of transposable elements is the formation of introns and that introns benefit the organism by increasing gene expression.

Dr. Don McCarty, Professor - Horticultural Sciences & PMCB Program
Ph.D. in Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin
Office:   2237 Fifield Hall
Tel:   392-1928 ext 322
Fax:  392-6479
e-mail:   drm@ufl.edu
http://pgir.rutgers.edu/endosperm.org/EndoSperm.html
Research interests: Physiological and molecular aspects of development in seeds
Nowhere is the challenge of analyzing the functions of many interacting genes more evident than in the genetics of seed development. Seed mutants have contributed greatly to our understanding of key biological processes in the plant seed, including the starch pathway, the anthocyanin pigment pathway, storage protein synthesis, and embryo development, pattern formation, maturation and germination. In spite of these recent advances, much remains to be done. The vast majority of mutants that have seed phenotypes are not yet molecularly characterized. Maize is uniquely suited for genetic analysis of the seed as seed mutants are easily identified and studied in this plant. Such mutants also link fundamental studies in seed growth and development to potentially valuable aspects of grain yield. Current research efforts exploit the Robertsons's Mutator transposable element for the development of an enhanced through-put approach to the cloning and characterization of maize genes affecting quantitative and qualitative aspects of seed development.

Dr. Rongling Wu - Associate Professor, Department of Statistics
Ph.D. in Quantitative Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle
Office:  409 McCarty Hall C
Tel:  352-392-3806
Fax:   352- 392-8555
e-mail:  rwu@ifas.ufl.edu
http://ifasstat.ifas.ufl.edu/RWu.html
Research interests:  Statistical genetics
With the recent development of molecular biotechnologies and instruments, genetic and genomic data can now be generated from any organism almost with no limits. Statistical genetics, aimed to provide effective and efficient analyses and utilization of these data, has thus become one of the hottest, most active and most promising areas of statistics. My overall interest of research is to develop a collection of theoretical models, statistical methods and computational algorithms for genetic and genomic research in any biological system. In particular, I would like to implement any possible universal biological principles within my statistical framework, ultimately increasing the power and precision of my methods as well as their biological relevance in the agricultural and biomedical contexts.