[Source: Eureka Alert] – Boyce Thompson Institute Associate Scientist Thomas Brutnell is helping lead a group of life scientists and computer researchers who are attempting to solve one of the “grand challenges” in the plant sciences. The challenge is to predict how plants will grow and develop based on their particular genetic makeup and the various environments where they are found or planted. Solving this problem requires new computer software and computational capabilities, including powerful tools to allow scientists around the globe to collaborate on plant research.
The principles of iPlant, a nearly $50 million project funded by the National Science Foundation, include development of a cyberinfrastructure collaborative effort and also to train the next generation of scientists in computational thinking and to reinvent itself as the needs of the scientific community and technologies change. The formal name of the five-year effort is the Plant Science Cyberinfrastructure Collaborative (PSCIC) program.
For more information: BTI’s Brutnell leads part of NSF Computational Plant Biology Research System