Achievement

Pat Schnable (IGERT advisor, Agronomy, ISU) and Srinivas Aluru (IGERT coPI, Computer Engineering, ISU) led an international team of plant biologists, computer scientists, and bioinformaticists in an effort that culminated in the completion of the maize genomic sequence last year. Their paper, "The B73 Maize Genome: Complexity, Diversity and Dynamics" was a featured cover article in Science in November 2009. According to Science, the article and companion studies "represent a milestone in genetics and plant biology, as well as the crowning achievement of a group of corn growers and scientists who envisioned changing the world of agriculture." IGERT faculty member, D. Nettleton (Statistics, ISU), and recent IGERT trainee, Scott Emrich, now on the faculty at Notre Dame, also contributed to the published work. The project is featured in an online interactive media presentation from the Dolan DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (http://weedtowonder.org/).