The University of Arizona's new BIO5 research collaborative is teaming up with local plant breeding company World Wide Wheat to design grains researchers hope will help curb many common American diseases. By developing new varieties of wheat and barley, the research teams are looking to build new versions that will help reduce cholesterol levels, cut risk for heart disease and cancer, and stabilize blood sugar levels in diabetics.

By combining BIO5's bioresearch in genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics with World Wide Wheat's germplasm (a collection of plant breeding material), the partners hope to produce health-optimizing grains through traditional cultivation methods. According to Dr. Vicki Chandler, director of BIO5, this could be done by altering the pattern of a starch molecule in a barley plant, or selecting for proteins that makes a wheat strain high in fiber.

"The big U.S. agricultural biotech firms really don't work with wheat," Chandler said. "So we see this as a really great opportunity."

World Wide Wheat is a private plant breeding company headquartered in Phoenix, with 17 research stations in seven countries. BIO5 is an interdisciplinary research institute housed in Tucson at the University of Arizona.

---

For more information:

Bio5 Website

World Wide Wheat Website