Charlotte Kemble, a Slovak-American Junior at Marian High School, is a driven scientist specializing in the study of MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and the development of bacteriophage technology. Her groundbreaking work has garnered recognition, including the Tri-PAC Senior Division Award for Advancement in Technology and an award of Outstanding Achievement in In Vitro Biology. Charlotte was also chosen to compete in the Senior Division at the ISEF Science competition on April 6th, 2024. Charlotte’s expertise and innovative research have laid the foundation for advancements in combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria, marking her as a leader in the field of microbiology.
Emeritus Professor of Plant Science and Biotechnology Dr. Gregory C. Phillips reached multiple research milestones this year, according to ResearchGate. ResearchGate noted over 3,000 career citations of Dr. Phillips’ peer-reviewed original research and review articles in August 2024, placing him in the top 5% of plant research scientists. In October 2024 ResearchGate had recorded over 300 citations for his 5-year-old review article published in 2019 covering significant observations made over his broad biotechnology career (this article had a 2-year impact of 24 citations): “Plant Tissue Culture Media and Practices: an Overview,” GC Phillips and M Garda, In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant 55(3):242-257. Google Scholar credits Dr. Phillips with over 4,000 total citations. Dr. Phillips was Dean and Professor of the College of Agriculture at Arkansas State University 2003-2011, also served as Dean of Engineering and Dean of Sciences and Mathematics 2005-2009, and returned to faculty status 2011-2020 with a research lab in the Arkansas Biosciences Institute. Dr. Phillips says he is gratified to see his work so well received by his colleagues!
Since the beginning of September, Lennart Hoengenaert has taken over as coordinator of the VIB-UGent Crop Genome Engineering Facility in Belgium, following Laurens Pauwels’ transition to a new role at UGent. As a Professor, Laurens will continue his research on enhancing plant transformation and gene editing, while also taking on teaching responsibilities.
At the Crop Genome Engineering Facility, they are continuing to build on Laurens’ work, and their maize and soybean transformation platform remains available for external academic institutions and industry partners. Alongside their transformation services, they also offer expertise in T-DNA copy number determination, construct design, cloning, and genotyping.
Allan Wenck, JD, PhD left Syngenta at the beginning of May and focused on studying for the patent bar. He took the patent bar at the end of August and passed. He received his official certification as a patent lawyer from the United States Patent Office recently and has started a new position as Director of Intellectual Property for Traitology.
In a paper entitled “Simultaneous Genetic Transformation and Genome Editing of Mixed Lines in Soybean (Glycine max) and Maize (Zea mays)” , Bayer Crop Science R&D scientists demonstrate the simultaneous transformation and editing of many genotypes by targeting mixed seed embryo explants with genome editing machinery followed by re-identification through genotyping after plant regeneration. Transformation and Editing of Mixed Lines (TREDMIL) produced transformed individuals representing 101 of 104 (97%) mixed elite genotypes in soybean; and 22 of 40 (55%) and 9 of 36 (25%) mixed maize female and male elite inbred genotypes, respectively. Characterization of edited genotypes for the regenerated individuals identified over 800 distinct edits at the Determinate1 (Dt1) locus in samples from 101 soybean genotypes and 95 distinct Brown midrib3 (Bm3) edits in samples from 17 maize genotypes. These results illustrate how TREDMIL can help accelerate the development and deployment of customized crop varieties in the precision breeding future. This paper was published in June 2024 in aBIOTECH https://doi.org/10.1007/s42994-024-00173-5. Contact Dr. Yurong Chen at [email protected] or Dr. Edward Cargill @ [email protected] for more information.
