Graduate Research Training Program in Plant Genetics

The Purdue University plant genetics faculty proposes to establish an interdepartmental graduate training program. This proposal has a currently interactive core staff of 18 faculty representing classical, biochemical, physiological, and molecular genetics and genetic engineering. The proposed NSF Training Grant Program in Plant Genetics will emphasize graduate training in fundamental concepts of modern genetics, and the integrated application of genetics across the range of steps from the gene to the whole organism. The participants in the program have productive genetic research programs directed toward basic biological questions that are unique to and /or particularly tractable in plant systems; plant disease resistance, plant growth and development, plant genome analysis, and plant genetic engineering. Future graduates of the proposed program will possess not only a broad range of molecular skills, but will also be thoroughly indoctrinated in questions in the major areas of plant biology.