The National Science Foundation has awarded a $29 million grant to a consortium of researchers, including scientists from University of Arizona, to map the corn plant genome.

Rod Wing, Bio5 member and a plant science professor with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, will lead UA's team of researchers in providing the framework for the project, a map that will cover about 95 percent of the corn genome.

Wing's team will receive $2.2 million with an additional $4 million flowing in from collaborators, who will purchase genetic resources for the sequencing project. Washington University in St. Louis, Iowa State University, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York are also members of the consortium.

The project is to enhance drought resistance, yield, and nutritional value in corn and other cereal groups. Progress to date has been slowed somewhat by gaps in researcher's knowledge of the corn genome.

"Once the corn genome sequence is in our hands, these advances can happen much faster," Wing said.

Just a few months ago, Wing was part of a successful international endeavor to map the genome of rice, the first food crop to have its genome fully sequenced. On that project, too, he collaborated with Washington University and Cold Spring Harbor.

"This grant reinforces the position of the UA as a world leader in plant genomics," said Vicki Chandler, director of Bio5 and a regents professor in the department of plant sciences. "It further exemplifies our exceptionally competitive position in attracting national funding for key areas such as genomics—an invaluable asset for Arizona's developing industry."

The software used to generate the genetic map was developed by Carol Soderlund, a research faculty member at UA. Her computer programs have been used in building the physical maps of every large genome that has been sequenced to completion, including the human genome.

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For more information:

Bio5 press release

"Arizona researchers try to decode DNA of corn plant," USA Today, 11/16/2005